
Class_ClSBirQ 
Bonk * r\ I- ^^ 



COFlfRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



A 
Journal 

to 
Rosalind 



A 

Journal 



fo 



Rosalind 




For of the soul the body form doth take, 
Since soul is forai and doth the body make. 



NEW YORK 
W. HUEBSCH, Inc. 
MCMXX 



COPYRiaHT, 1920, BY B. W. HUEBSCH. Inc. 
PRINTED IN U. S. A. 






MAR 19 1821 
.0)CI.A608753 



PREFACE 

Some time ago a friend placed in my hands 
a collection of papers, loosely arranged in the 
form of a journal. ''Take them and read 
them," he said; ''do what you will with them." 
I accepted the opportunity; it was not long in- 
deed before the opportunity came to seem a 
privilege. Here was the inner history of a 
great love, the story of a spiritual re-birth : the 
papers, as I studied them, assumed in my mind 
the proportions of a drama of the profoundest 
human import. I became convinced that other 
readers should share my privilege with me. 

What, briefly, is this drama revealed in the 
"Journal to Rosalind"? A few words of in- 
terpretation may not seem impertinent. 

It is the "great scene" in the life of a man 
who has lived much but who had never, as he 
tells us, until this culminating moment, sounded 

V 



the depths of his nature. The author of the 
journal is a man well-known in many fields — 
in politics, in literature, on the stage. His has 
been a "turbulent and many-sided" career. A 
democrat in economics and politics, as he says 
(and one whose achievements have been at the 
cost of many sacrifices), he is also an aristocrat 
in soul. He is, and has always been, an artist 
by nature ; and this element, the most essential 
in him, had been checked and repressed by the 
exigencies of an all too busy life. It is the 
renascence, the re-creation of his spirit "in the 
wonder of a great joy" that we see coming to 
pass in this journal. "You," he writes, "are 
the wonder-worker who makes a man to fit your 
majesty." In the influence of this love he has 
become what he had scarcely even hoped to be, 
"a garden all bloom, a flower all fragrance, a 
bird all song, a soul all joy." He finds him- 
self at last filled with the "free man's courage," 
his finest instincts have been stirred to activity, 
he is suddenly ripe for the harvest of a long, 
wide and deep experience of life. His faculties 
have come together in a swift ecstasy: he has 

vi 



become 'like a glistening star on a brilliant 
night at sea." 

Shall I trace this drama step by step? A 
few phrases will suffice. '1 was a spiritual 
wreck/' he writes, "thrown up by the gales of 
disappointment on to the rocky, jagged crags of 
political despair, artistic chagrin and spiritual 
starvation, ... an old hulk, a memory of 
what might have been, a thing suggesting vast 
possibilities lost. You salved me — you did 
what others thought impossible. You, you 
alone, drew me from the rocks of oblivion and 
set me once more sound and taut on the waves 
of great endeavour." Again : "The rosy hopes 
you bring are those which I not long ago buried 
as wholly or in part unrealizable." Again: 
"The useless past is now a fruitful river bearing 
rich cargoes." One motto of the book indeed 
might be : "Out of the mire of worthless effort 
up to the work-dream of my youth." The 
artist, through the lover, has come into his own, 
he feels "a new possession of essentials" : "You 
have brought me," he says, "back through a 
mystery to the loveliness of art." Love has at 

vii 



last enabled him to possess the best in himself 
and share it with humanity. 

And, as always happens when the spirit is in- 
candescent, he finds himself, this lover, a spokes- 
man of reality, of spiritual truth. ''We sub- 
mit," he saj^s, ''to a world of ideas already 
made. ... All nature gives the lie to our sys- 
tem of life." With the seers he has discovered 
that "without full expression there is no liv- 
ing." He has found and he proclaims the 
secret of "that grace which preserves the spirit 
in its glow and the mind from satisfaction and 
decay." It is the grace of the poet, a grace to 
which the poet in every man responds. The 
poet in many will, I think, respond to this jour- 
nal. They will remember, above all, perhaps, 
these beautiful words, dictated by the supreme 
experience of a life and reminiscent of Goethe : 
"The tender green will some day clothe our 
wishes so long as the sap of big desire is there 
to animate our souls." 

B. U. 



Vlll 



A JOURNAL TO ROSALIND 



A JOURNAL TO ROSALIND 

Tuesday^ September /j. 
The early mornings these days are far too 
beautiful for me to enjoy without you. It 
seems like selfishness to be glad and rejoice in 
the wonder of the quiet, sunny hours. Sol has 
been pouring yellow rays into my room since 
six o'clock, and I have lain lazily listening to 
the song of the light wind in the thick leafy 
trees. Only the sound of a footstep in the 
passage now and then breaks the harmony of the 
sea and forest music. Listening intently for a 
few moments I catch the sound of breakers — I 
fancy sometimes I can hear the sands rushing 
through the wavelets as they recede from the 
shore. It is a wonder morning — full of bright 
life. There is something of the magic of a 
spring day in it. The air exhilarates and taunts 
the blood. My window wide open all these 

1 



days lets in the fine air to burnish my flesh. 
It is stimulating to stand quite still, but taut, 
and catch now and then the air coming from 
shadowy nooks, where the sun has not yet 
pierced a way in, and feel the quick sting of 
autumn's chillier breath. I have happy mo- 
ments. I am alone and you are well. 

The paper tells me the Symphony begins 
shortly. Will you take me? This winter you 
are going to know music and love it. I am to 
pour out what is in me into your soul. A new 
life is coming to you. I have discovered some- 
thing very interesting. Without music it is 
well-nigh impossible to throw off the garments 
of tradition, for music is the universal voice. 
It knows no law — ^moral or non-moral. It 
breathes its own desire without let or hindrance. 
Its ethic is fundamental, universal, eternal. It 
translates into one cosmic tongue the yearnings 
of the world-soul and surmounts all barriers of 
nationality. You know the language of the 
forest, the voice of the hills, the bourdons and 
diapasons of the sea, then why not know the 
language of the composer when he tells all their 

2 



stories in musical terms? You must let your- 
self go, my love. What depths lie in you! 
You contain miracles of expression. Don't be 
afraid — just express yourself. It is the only 
justification for living. Indeed without full 
expression there is no living. 

I never rise to greet a morning like this with- 
out believing firmly all Nature gives the lie to 
our system of life. It seems to say, "See, sun, 
air, land and sea rejoice in full expression of 
their powers!" Is it not so? Think of the 
heat of this summer. Think of the wild blasts 
of last winter's icy gales. Think of the light- 
ning and the torrential rains, the deafening 
thunders, the inky black heavens driving before 
the cyclone! All, all express their powers. 
And yet this smiling morn falls like a refresh- 
ing benediction on the soul of almost expression- 
less man. But would we know its charm, its 
exquisite beauty, if we had not known its dif- 
ferent ways, its many variations? One fine, 
pure morning, in a long life, in which full ex- 
pression has been wrought, makes up in God's 
reckoning for all the real frailties of our days. 

3 



Later. 

Civilization must be the fulfillment of the 
original curse. I know no other way to account 
for it. The hand of eternal justice is upon us. 
I hear the heavens thunder, "I made ye in my 
image, I fashioned ye as free as sky and sea, and 
ye would not trust my handiwork. Man de- 
stroys the goodliness of his Creator's work. 
Man crushes the spring out of his heart, stamps 
the summer out of his soul, afflicts his mind 
with restraints and fears, when I, his Maker, 
will him to be Free." 

The change is coming, my own love, and we 
are to be change-makers. We shall not live in 
vain. Our ideals will somehow go out from 
us and find a resting-place in the souls of the 
wretched, rich and poor alike, and we shall see 
light like the gold which gleams about me this 
fair moming shine in eyes fixed on the dawn of 
Liberty. 

Bless you, my beloved, for the new hope you 
have breathed into my soul. 



September 2sd. 

My soul has been struggling through thun- 
dery clouds since you left me this morning. It 
is strange how sometimes I feel you are far, 
far away though you are at my side. So it 
was to-day. You were pre-occupied, perhaps 
— you must be often enough with all the tasks 
that beset you. I had a feeling that it would 
be better if I could slip away — or drop out of 
sight for a little while, leave you to yourself 
so that you might give your undivided attention 
to those things I know must occupy your mind. 
I say to myself, ''Go away, my beloved must 
have some relief, some rest." But I don't go. 
Selfishly I seek every moment to be near you. 
How conscious I am at times that I am utterly 
selfish, so thoughtless in these things, that my 
unwisdom is not kind to you. Yet I never 
grow wise. My resolutions are mere bubbles 
which burst at a kiss, often at sight of you. 
You are so good, so generous. I am afraid I 
impose. 

Friday evening. 

It seemed so strange to hear you say your 

5 



love was making you selfish. You have spoken 
about ''selfishness" before, but not in connection 
with your love. I have always smiled when 
you have referred to that subject. You and 
''selfishness" are opposite poles. If there be 
one fault in you it is that you are wholly un- 
selfish. My darling, I have often wished to 
tackle this subject. Somehow I have refrained, 
for it opens up so many other questions I fear 
to touch upon. 

Let me say at once that I was born with an 
inordinate supply of "selfishness." As a child 
I was conscious of that trait. But as I grew 
up to manhood I discovered it was only a desire 
to be left alone. I don't remember craving 
very much for what others had. This I know : 
the more I have given in politics, the drama, 
business, etc., the less I have been paid. But, 
thank God, my actions have seldom been actu- 
ated by the thought of what I would earn. 
Artist or not, I had at all times an artist's mind. 
There was wisdom enough in me to make me 
realize that such a life as mine, a life of hard 
labour, turmoil, everlasting change, could not 

6 



produce an artist. Well, I have given thirty 
years of my life to make up for the deficiencies 
of youth. Yes, given. For what I have 
learned (not earned, for learning is after all the 
lasting remuneration, not earning), I have given 
freely away. I could have been so selfish — 
without any effort, indeed. 

Later. 

I often wonder if philosophers have the 
slightest idea how fascinating is the desire to 
hoard what one has learned of life that is new. 
To gloat in silence over some discovery, or some 
forgotten truth. The miser of knowledge is 
not unlike his fellow who hoards gold. They 
differ, however, in this respect: knowledge is 
not so easily gained as gold. 

What little cash I got seldom went to gratify 
any deep desire of mine. Traveling cost me 
little; my journeys were usually paid for in ad- 
vance. My brains won locomotion for me. 
Do you know I have often renounced the joy 
of a new golf ball? After I left the opera I 
began a life of stint and soon crushed out of 

7 



me every money-spending impulse that formerly 
led to companionship, music, books, and so on. 

I can only gauge my own selfishness by that 
of my intimates. Still I am full-blooded, much 
stronger, more pleasure-loving than my friends. 
Denial is no virtue to the ascetic. I, however, 
claim no virtue. Sheer necessity compelled 
denial in me. 

To put my record into years it might run this 
way: from 19 to 34 labour, study, pleasure, 
penury, learning how to live, escaping hunger 
and death, some creative work, a book, a play, 
a libretto, some verse : total, not worth adding. 
From thirty- four to to-day — art, causes, politics, 
journalism: total, not worth adding. 

Progress — still on the road, footing it, thank 
God, though it makes me sweat blood, as it did 
to-day, when I felt very conscious of how far 
I have to go yet. 

What has been gained? You! 

You, my beloved, are my reward. 

Love is come into my life to warm it, sustain 
it, strengthen it. She lifts up my soul. Art is 
seen again through her. Yes, my face was bit- 

8 



ter last year. You noticed that? You should 
have known the state of my soul. Perhaps my 
face reflected the bitterness it suffered. 

Really, ''unselfishness" carries no force. 
Unselfishness is a negative virtue; it lacks per- 
sonality, command, resource. Besides, it can- 
not bless others in the higher sense, for it begins 
with the notion of solving other people's diffi- 
culties without their attempting to solve them 
for themselves. It presupposes inertia in 
others ; it accepts weakness, inability, cowardice ; 
it encourages selfishness. 

Sympathy is something else. You have 
sympathy. When I say you are ''unselfish" I 
really mean you are sympathetic. I have 
always marveled at your amazing sense of un- 
derstanding. I know now all about it: your 
deep sympathy lies at the base of it. Strange, 
indeed, that I never could unravel this problem 
until now. Yes, my lovely one, you gave me 
another view of life and all the complexities of 
heart and mind were brushed aside. I saw you 
in another light. Jesus, Nietzsche (at Genoa), 
St. Francis passed by and smiled on you. My 

9 



heart was very sad. I thought of those who 
cannot help themselves — the crippled children. 
The world of woe I have known so well rose 
up again before me and called me back. Then 
I was conscious of the bitterness through which 
my soul had passed since the war smashed all 
my work. The fatalism I had accepted in 
my hour of despair had taken deep hold. But 
yesterday set things right again. 

Thanks, dear, dear love. Sympathy. 
Imagine the utter absurdity of saying Jesus 
was unselfish ! Sympathy is quite different : it 
includes understanding — grace and good-will. 

So — I shall be sympathetic and selfish. 

The word selfishness has been given many 
meanings. In the Old and New Testaments it 
is seldom used. I think it should only be used 
in the sense of gluttony, excess, ease, lust, etc. 
The word seems to carry with it the idea of 
stomachic joy. 

I shudder sometimes at the eulogies of your 
dearest friends. They know you for your most 
obvious traits — at least, that is the way they 
impress me. Kindness, loyalty, constancy, and 

lo 



resource : these they know. Certainly no usual 
combination in one woman. Indeed it is rare 
to find all these virtues in one person. But I 
have not met one who knows all your charm, 
refinement, artistic sense, true grace, beauty of 
soul, comprehension. Neither relative nor 
friend seems to have seen these characteristics. 
The multiplicities of your nature are not known 
to them. 

No, our loving can do harm to none. We 
shall bless relative and friend. Our happiness 
will reach others, it will warm them, revitalize 
them by its glow. 

There is a quiet joy lying over my heart to- 
day. It is like the balm of your lips, the 
unction of your sublime sympathy. 

Wednesday morning. 
I went for a long walk last night. It was 
perfect: clear, cool, still. I roamed all about 
the place and nearly got lost. The lake was 
brooding, only the faintest surge rippling on the 
shore. I was not well, so ill at ease, my mind 
charged with thousands of thoughts of you and 

11 



your safety. But what a charm a clear, still 
night has upon a restless mind! I came back 
soothed and slept. 

''Come to me in my dreams." You came, 
but oh, so troubled the dream ! 

I said I would let no one come between me 
and my work. I said that some years ago. 
Dear me, there is no work now without you. 
What an astounding change! Day and night 
now depend on you. I shall never know a 
tranquil day while you are out of my reach. 
The fears, the anxieties that hourly possess me, 
when you are away, torture me beyond endur- 
ance sometimes. I was never lonely — not since 
I was a child; but now loneliness comes upon 
me and settles all over me like a Highland mist. 
It drenches me with its vapoury chill. It 
makes me feel utterly deserted. Why is it? 
I ask myself that question over and over again. 
I don't know. I always wished for loneliness 
— the quiet of solitary existence so that I might 
work in peace, but this is different. This is 
loneliness without the desire to work. 



12 



Sep^t ember 2g. 

What heavenly nights. Luna at her fullest 
and brightest. You will revel in the silver 
sheen of harvest evenings. Do you ever hear 
me calling you? I wonder. When I am quite 
alone and all is still I let myself sink into almost 
nothingness. Perhaps I become a void which 
is all soul — ethereal space — like the de3ert on a 
stilly night. Then a cry I feel but do not hear 
goes out and pierces the segment of the deep 
blue dome of night. Just one name surges up 
from the dungeon of my being and travels far, 
far into the love-laden sky. It must reach you 
— not your ears, perhaps, but your soul. 

I find relief in Prometheus. It is mighty 
verse. Brave Shelley I He knew, didn't he? 

"I dare not speak like life, lest Heaven's fell king 
Should hear, and link me to some wheel of pain 
More torturing than the one whereon I roll." 

The first scene of the second act is a marvel- 
ous tapestry of glowing beauty wrought in all 
the colours of glorious morn and the slumbrous 
West, when Phoebus sings on the bosom of calm 

13 



ocean. Shelley knew with a lover's intimacy 
the tenderness of Nature's fingers. The semi- 
chorals of the second scene are exquisite num- 
bers; they reveal a knowledge of sounds and 
movements which proves how close Shelley's 
ear always was to the finest strains sung by 
Nature herself. 'There the voluptuous night- 
ingales" is like a motive falling and rising in a 
symphony of pure melody, — like the glory and 
the pain of the great andante in the second 
movement of the Unfinished. 

For absolute joy is there anything in or out 
of literature which surpasses the rhapsody of 
the Second Faun? Read it. I know it well. 
But every time I drink in the pure beauty of the 
lines I thrill anew with ecstasy. Can't you 
imagine how Francis Thompson shouted and 
laughed in rich red joy when he saw that divine 
description of the dwelling-place of the Spirits 
''which make such delicate music in the woods" ? 

Oh, my beloved, you — you and no one else — 
have brought me back through a mystery to the 
loveliness of art. 



14 



Tuesday evening. 

I told you to-day great changes had taken 
place in me this year; astonishing changes, some 
inconceivably wonderful. 

How and why these changes could be effected 
in a mature character is a whole history in 
psychology. It is not, however, necessary for 
the present purpose to consider the antecedents 
of the change — the new condition occasioned by 
the change is the important thing. 

Some time last spring, I know not the day 
or hour, I was born again. Again, is literally 
true, for I was fully conscious at the hour of 
new birth of the life I had formerly lived — 
only a few weeks or months gone by. I know 
I was the same in shape and growth; to all ap- 
pearances the same man. But many transmi- 
grations had taken place, and though the same 
body was recognized by my intimates, I realized 
everything within me was new. The change 
was fundamental — the old essentials were gone. 

My emotions were new. I felt despair 
deeper, I reached joy higher than before. 
Gladness brought new colours. Humour was 

1? 



finer and pain keener. My sensibilities were 
more refined, more sympathetic, more quickly 
stirred. 

Spiritually I was made anew. The funda- 
mental change was a renascence — a new pos- 
session of essentials thrilled me. 

And now the creature of your joy or pain 
lives only when it is near you. It dies when it 
leaves you as a flower droops after sunset, but 
lives again at sunrise — when you smile on it 
once more. You, then, are the essential, the 
indispensable sun, vitally necessary for the life's 
happiness and duration of your creature. It 
must give whatever fragrance it has up in 
scented waves to you. Whatever beauty of 
soul it has must be immolated on the altar of 
your shrine. Nothing else in all this world 
matters but you and it. It is a tendency, and 
its self-preservation is in your keeping. 

Did you shape me according to the height of 
your heavenly desire? Tell me, what magic 
did you employ in shaping me, spiritually, men- 
tally and physically, to be one ever vibrating 
thought of you? 

16 



October 4. 
Last night when I got to my room I sat quite 
still for a long time thinking of the future. I 
was far away — far, as things are — in a time 
when we shall have none of the restraints which 
now seem so cruel to me. I see happiness when 
I stand on tip-toe and look over the present bar- 
rier. Yet, how often I stand flat-foot and 
bent and see only the barrier itself. What is 
the matter with me so often is a craving that 
nothing can satisfy for a single moment but 
your presence. I have told you many times 
that I was a lonely boy, one thrust in upon 
himself, and that my yearnings were downright 
realities which caused pain, sorrow or joy. 
"Why are you crying?'' some one would say, 
and I could give no answer. But I had some- 
thing very definite to cry about, there was a real 
grief in me. So now I find with you, the per- 
sonification of all my dreams of wonderland, 
that wanting or not getting, or not seeing, not 
finding, make up the sum of my existence ; my 
hour, my day, is clouded or bright solely accord- 
ing to the conditions in which we are placed. 

17 



Thursday evening. 

Somehow I can never really enjoy charming, 
pleasurable things without you. I feel you 
should share with me the joys of landscapes, 
sunsets, and fine sights. 

You who can describe the sky and land so 
deftly should have seen the sunset last night. 
The colouring was sublime. There were so 
many softening tones running the gamut of cold 
blue to warm melting blue greens into faint yel- 
low. Down on the horizon a great splash of 
deep red emblazoned with flame a mighty cloud 
of wondrous plumy pearl high up in the deep 
blue. That one bank of cloud glittering with 
all the hues of the horizon was sole monarch 
of the calm sky. 

It was your yellow that sent a pang of regret 
through me. 

The new moon showed faintly like a sliver 
of pale pearl away to the south. I watched 
it brighten as the rich lights faded on the hori- 
zon. 

It is quiet and beautiful this morning. A 
maple is near, daring to turn yellow. And I 

18 



want my love, my dear sweet mate. All of 
me cries out for her this morning. 

You have discovered to me depths in my 
nature which make all passions and efforts past 
pale into mere incidents of ordinary intellectual 
endeavour. You have plumbed my soul. A 
word or two from you can inspire me with ideas 
I never before possessed. You don't know the 
miracle you have wrought. Anyway, you pos- 
sess what you inspire, and the best you have 
found in me belongs solely to you. Is it strange 
that I should fight to keep what I have won? 
Strange to win the owner of the power that gives 
me life? Who would take away my breath? 
Who would turn the current of my blood from 
my heart? 

You are the wonder-worker who makes a man 
to fit your majesty. You have taken a poor 
unworthy creature and breathed new spirit into 
him, given him inspiration and endowed him 
with a higher mind. 

Sweet, I am sensitive and proud. I am vain 
in my own exclusiveness. Democrat though I 
be in economics and politics, I am an aristocrat 

19 



in soul. Now, think, I have to face the crowd 
and lay myself open to the criticisms of all and 
sundry. One question affecting my own inti- 
mate behaviour would have been enough to 
make me shun the platform forever. That 
has been my position ever since I faced the 
mob. 

Now all is radically changed. I might never 
have existed before. You have wrought a 
cataclysm. For myself — nothing matters. 
Everything in me, associated with me, depends 
solely on you. No less an aristocrat spiritually 
— more, far more, in higher ways — I fear noth- 
ing so long as you do not suffer. I would go 
through hell for you. I do go through hell for 
you. I trod every one of its labyrinths last 
night. The thought of you, and all you mean 
to me, bears me up and I rise smiling at the 
brighter prospect. In the old life it was a 
series of beginnings, — with a few things accom- 
plished, but the longings unsatisfied, the fair 
sweet wishes to do something well. Never 
mind, they belong to the future now. And 
there lies all my hope. The thought of you 

20 



gives me courage, strength to face the bitter 
impatient hours. 

I bless you for the tears and pains of loneli- 
ness. They wash my soul white. Perhaps you 
do not know the loneliness you have bequeathed 
to me. It cannot be helped and, in the circum- 
stances, I would not have it otherwise. Wor- 
ship is for the lonely — ^^that is why God gave us 
the mountains for communion, and the desert 
where we may bow down and lay our souls 
bare to Him. 

Our love is wonderful. Love is always won- 
derful, but ours is exceptionally so. 

October 7. 
Itself! That is what appeals to me in the 
desert. It is the place of fasting where true 
communion lies. Its vast reaches of silence 
contain a spirit which speaks as surely to the 
anxious wearied soul as that of the hills. But 
the desert runs to low horizons and there the 
sun rises and sets at one's feet. Then the airs 
come mysteriously out of the pockets where no 
clouds seem to gather. The desert has a soul 

21 



at rest even when the storms pass across its face. 
But to understand the desert and its spiritual 
grandeur I feel one must adopt some of its free- 
dom. There no paths are set straight for wan- 
dering feet, no boundaries hem one in, no by- 
law says "this far and no farther," no regulation 
says ''keep to the right." All is open, serene 
and noble. It breathes the sublime faith in 
our dominion and discretion. It is ourselves 
without convention and its restraints. The 
desert means to me thought, not talk; it is of 
the real; it is subversive of externals and ap- 
pearances. There the world is overthrown and 
a man can only endure it when he realizes that 
he stands there face to face with God. 

How we have forgotten the desert! We 
have turned our backs on it in the so-called civil- 
izing processes of the ages. Long ago wise men 
came from the desert; before the Baptist went 
in search of Him who gave men the law of cul- 
ture, the great thinkers realized the desert could 
give to them what the haunts of men did not 
contain. Profound contemplation is to be ex- 
perienced only in the desert. 

22 



Later. 
My mind is too, too full of you. Each 
minute is charged with a thousand conflicting 
moods, each mood a world of thought in itself. 
So now to catch some of the stirring, deeply 
disturbing ideas your image conjures up and set 
them down ! Verse eludes me to-day, my life's 
rhythm is out of joint; it is disconnected and 
syncopated, with strange discords — double flats 
and sharp minors. ... I have tried reading. 
Here is Bergson. What is this ailment? Why 
this soul-sickness? While spring is in our 
hearts, while the sun gleams in our souls, while 
our days are full and the nights are crowded 
with heavenly bliss ! Listen. I'll read to you : 

"God has nothing of the already made; 
He is unceasing Hfe, action, freedom." 

There is a great text for this room. That is 
it ! Bergson prescribes by reminding us of our 
antiquated notions. "God has nothing of the 
already made." And yet we submit to a world 
of ideas already made by older mortals when 
we came forth. It is rank blasphemy. Our 

23 



God is convention ; we know no Creator. Our 
ritual has been manufactured — from Manu to 
Calvin. Our mind is not God-given; it is 
priest-made and priest-ridden. We are free 
only within the narrow confines of our own 
social compounds. There is no heavenly 
health in us. We stand aghast at the prompt- 
ings of our souls; we dare not let our minds 
work out logically all our natural, God- 
bequeathed desires demand. What sorry 
wrecks we make of our better selves! It is 
monstrous. And yet we know quite well there 
is nothing already made about us — we are souls 
in the making. There is scarcely a moment we 
can not use for spiritual development. What 
was I a year ago? A man sick — very sick, 
spiritually, mentally, physically. Who healed 
me? You laid the balm of your loveliness and 
grace upon my wounds and made me whole. 

Wednesday evening. 
It came at eight o'clock. I was asleep, and 
the knocking on the door startled me. After I 
signed the receipt and discharged the boy, I 

24 



gave myself up to the joy of reading the first 
letter. When the counterfeit presentment fell 
from it, I was warmed at once. So the lovely 
figure was beheaded ! But I have the head. 

Last night I read of yellow primroses and 
purple violets, dull brown foliage and restful 
grayness. And of a yearning for sun and 
warmth. Beautiful passages that showed her 
descriptive power and an eagerness to see into 
the heart of nature's loveliness. Sun, sun — 
always sun was what I gathered from her writ- 
ings. Would she try to impart some of that 
great desire to mortals who know only the rain 
which falls incessantly in their soul? I feel 
sure she would give much happiness if she wrote 
a book about the sun and what Phoebus means 
to her. 

October g. 

There is a picture at my side, and out of it 
strange, intellectual, deep, changing eyes look 
at me and seem to follow my movements. An 
expression of earnest inquiry comes at moments, 
and sometimes the eyes are sad, and then again 
they smile. Wisdom as profound as Erda's 

25 



seems to be behind the shining veil which would 
hide the secret in the soul. It is the mouth — 
the reposeful yet humorous mouth — in two 
slight brackets sweetly disposed that tempers 
the austere chin and softens the eyes in moments 
of grave questioning. 

I wonder! What is the question? Those 
eyes can search the inmost soul of one who is 
ready to lay it bare. There can be no secret 
there. But the secret is elsewhere — in the soul 
behind the eyes which look on me. That quest 
is the enterprise which runs down all eternity. 

October ii. 
The rain was in the heart before the light 
passed from the earth, and darkness came laden 
with the dews of the soul. Poor afflicted soul ! 
It yearns for nightless days. And well it might, 
having known fair heavens in shining eyes. 
The only peace which can come in sombre hours 
is that which love in gracious arms can bring; 
and rest is confident dreaming close-twined to a 
happy breast. To live in the wonder of a great 
joy, to recreate in memory the marvels of 

26 



silences full of deep throbbings, the broken 
sentences of questionings vague and sad, the 
mute philosophies of fugitive expressions pass- 
ing across a sweet face in moments of doubt, 
and joy, and pain, these things which heap up 
the sum of unfathomable happinesses come 
gleaming into the mind which would live it all 
again. And there in the store-house of past 
joys and pains are all the infinitesimal details 
of the marvel that was wrought. That joy is 
beyond recreation! But in ourselves, in the 
inmost heart, in the deepest soul, there lie all the 
powers to live in very truth through like won- 
ders over again. It is indeed the strength which 
is given in such joys that binds the future 
securely and gilds the great cloud which hides 
the firmament's glory and depth. 

Love was ever in expression a metaphor com- 
mingled, and those restrictions which check the 
coursing pen must be held accountable for the 
ambiguous. Freedom is, you see, the very 
fount of love. Its gushing waters turn away 
whenever they are checked. Naturally, they 
would leap up into the heavens and at their 

27 



height fall, like sprays from Celia's lap refresh- 
ing the parched and languorous earth, each drop 
descending like a demand to every dormant im- 
pulse to make and beautify the world. So the 
poet must have freedom, and as the soul is the 
true poet, liberty is the cry of a shocked and 
tortured soul. 

"I would write a thousand songs," the poet 
cries, "but I must see her face to face." So 
the anguish of the shackled child of our modem 
Idalia is spent. Nature in all her gracious 
bounty beckons and will not be restrained. 
And the poet knows and feels. She waves 
her happy arms toward him all through the 
years of his strength, moving him to come to her 
and be really free. Fast some strange chain 
holds him down, and he, not conscious where 
the fetter grips him, tugs and writhes in the 
days of his energy in vain. 

"I must see her face to face," he cries. "She 
is my thought, the very texture of my mind. 
Let me go!" Starving child denied fulness 
in sight almost of heavy-laden harvests. What 
a mockery ! The God-like mind and. soul are 

28 



pinioned in a world which knows not song. 
And so he chafes and rails against he knows not 
what. All the inspiration, fancy, imagination 
of his intellect cry out for food. There is 
nature — sometimes like a Greek maiden with 
bright eyes, with soft white arms and restful 
breasts, waiting for him to explain her to poster- 
ity — and sometimes, she stands like a star in 
the heavy blue of night, radiant in her own love- 
liness, full of yearnings, with eager desire to 
give her own true worth to long generations of 
singers. He knows all this — and more, and 
more. He knows he must see her face to face. 
He knows he must feel her warm enlivening 
breath upon his cheeks. Who knows better 
than he that he must take her in his arms, enfold 
her in his soul, fill his heart with her, kiss her 
smiling lips when the day is begun and kiss her 
when the drowsiness of even comes with the 
spent day? All this — and more, so much more. 
Shelley broke his chain and flew to her. He 
saw her face to face. And we would not know 
Shelley if he had not the free man's courage. 
Yes, once she is seen face to face the world lies 

29 



new-made and a fresh glory rises from the earth. 
For those who are not worthy to touch his shoes 
there is left still a love perhaps as great, and a 
desire to see her face to face as deep as ever 
Shelley knew — though the pen fall in impotence 
to describe her. 

Tuesday. 
How sweet it is to let these thoughts of 
your tenderness linger in my mind while they 
set a-glowing all the embers of memory! In 
such a mood an hour goes by soft-footed, 
scarcely noticed. I sit and nurse these thoughts 
as doting mothers nurse their sleeping children : 
tender babes wrapped in the love of sweet sub- 
jection. These children of mine, sprung from 
you, are my true companions ; they are constant, 
loyal, and brave. They cheer me in such hours 
as these when you, fair mother of them all, are 
far away. They come to me in moments of 
despondency and pluck oppression from my 
heart; they bring relief from sorrow; they 
soothe away my deep anxieties. They turn 
their bud-like lips up to my mouth, and whisper 
in each kiss, ''Be brave, she thinks of you." 

30 



Then I warm myself at the fires of resolution, 
planning how, through absence, absence may be 
overcome. 

October 14. 

It was all in the process of a god-like recla- 
mation. But the already made says you should 
not have done it. Was there ever such blither? 
Did He who gave us being, choice, inclination, 
lay any embargo on selection? Never! Only 
man restricts; God is generous. 

Unceasing life He must be, for are we not 
each a world of unceasing life? A million 
processes are now at work in me — moving to- 
ward disintegration, to pass through it again 
to combination and construction. Oh, to live 
unceasing lives of action while our eyes melt 
before the radiance of our loves ! To see morn 
and noon and night in the face of the beloved 
one. I see God when I look deep into your 
eyes. 

It is restriction at which the soul revolts. 
We are in continual upheaval against restric- 
tion, though we are not always conscious of it. 

All philosophy, all metaphysics, gives the lie 

31 



to the social code. Indeed, we ourselves every 
day mutter in our souls, ''The system is a colos- 
sal lie from beginning to end." So our souls 
become ill, impatient, unhappy. Is it not so? 

Who said (Lowell, I think)— "To think 
one's self free is to be free" ? But freedom is 
more than thinking one's self free. I have been 
free for a long time now. But unless my love 
be free, what good is freedom to me? Life 
without you is useless. 

October i6. 
I have been looking for an old lecture on the 
drama I read years ago to a certain literary 
society. I found it in the rough, as I had 
sketched it out in 1898. ... I read it through 
and then thought of all I wished to do twenty 
years ago — all I wished to do and could not 
realize. And now my mind is more fertile than 
it was then. I see more clearly, further ahead. 
Am I now to do some of the things I have 
wished to do? My love, you will help me, 
won't you? I must work for someone. For 
you ! There will be happiness in it for you — 

32 



for me, too. Reviver of my youth, is it any 
wonder that I love you with all my heart and 
mind and soul? 

Eight o'clock. 
I am a firm believer in youth: fresh intelli- 
gence and young minds that will readily take 
good impressions. In my varied career I have 
too often seen the man of fifty wilfully conserve 
ideas because they have served him well. To 
shut out innovation because it might scrap the 
old is the fault of many men past middle life. 
They do not keep young. 

Friday. 
If I could make her happy, give her some- 
thing worth all her splendid giving ! But that 
is impossible. I can only try, just try, to make 
her happy. To see those dear soft cheeks glow, 
to see her fine eyes light with pleasure and watch 
the smiles of joy wreathe her bonny mouth — 
well, that will be something. How I shall 
work when I can get the chance! 



33 



II p. M. 

Can you imagine how interested I am in the 
young? You see, I have my own hard youth 
to look back upon. The sheer struggle to learn 
something essential under vast disabilities has 
taught me this much. Goethe was right — he 
that has not eaten his bread in sorrow, knows 
ye not, and so on. The sorrows of mental 
struggle are the real ones, because they are the 
very stuff of which our real life is woven. To 
know and produce. What else is worth while? 
If one seeks knowledge one cannot fail in use- 
fulness to one's kind. Then there is the great 
satisfaction of having something new to learn 
every day. The great tragedy of our existence 
is lack of purpose, emptiness of mind. Soul's 
starvation is worse than stomach hunger — so I 
have learned. Love, which is the highest we 
can reach, is fuller, more beautiful, richer when 
it thrives in a heart that knows a well-trained 
mind. 

October ig. 

How strangely the thing I do easily pulls 
in the direction I do not want to go. Speech is 

34 



my siren ! But I shall win and go the way I 
have chosen. Speech! Who remembers a 
speaker? He stirs the people sometimes and 
they may remember his words until another 
comes and stirs them. But nothing said en- 
dures like the written word. 

October 20. 

You are life in all its beauty and delight. 
Loveliness is not unless it be you, tenderness 
never was until you kissed me, and no face ever 
shone so brightly as yours shone to-night. It is 
you, yourself, who are responsible for all my 
moods and my desires. I am just the creature 
of your will. I am the action of your thought. 
You are the sun of my universe — I suffer all the 
changes of seasons with your evolutions. 
Draw near me and I am a blossoming garden. 
Recede a span and gloom settles over me, and 
the farther you withdraw your warmth the more 
cold I suffer. 

What can I do to show my love how benign 
is her love? How shall I prove my love for 
her? In this fact only, that I am all her 

35 



own, that she can do with me just what she 
pleases. 

Wednesday morning. 

My mind is full of the beauty of your won- 
derful self, and I linger over each dear thought 
of you with a clinging joy which will not let 
one go until another comes to be caught in the 
winding tendrils of memory. 

You make me speechless when I am with you. 
Words cannot tell what my soul would say of 
you. Last night I was too happy, too over- 
joyed, to tell you. Thoughts came gushing 
from my mind too fast to clothe in words. A 
torrent of love poured out of my soul too swift, 
too strong for me to check while I gave it ex- 
pression and guided it in speech to your ears. 

2^ October. 
How very strange it is that I should want 
you so constantly. You have completely be- 
witched me, cast some lovely spell over me, 
which has put an end to thinking of anything 
but you. "I am your universe," you have said, 

36 



"and you shall have no other thought but of 
me/' And I have no other thought. I haven't 
the slightest inclination to spend an hour on 
anything which does not directly concern yoil. 
But this universe of yours is higher, wider, and 
deeper than the one which formerly occupied 
my thought. It is illimitable, like my love for 
you. It is so full of glory my eyes have sight 
only for its colours. 

You sent me away on a cloud of gold last 
night. What a strange creature you have made 
of me! You can, with a word, fill me with 
delicious light. 

Are we not indivisible? Am I ever really a 
thing apart from you? I wonder, even in my 
hours of anguish, have I once been parted from 
you? . . . You have stripped me naked of all 
passions past, of all notions of self-sufRciency. 
I stood alone, now I fall without your love. I 
locked myself within the portals of my own 
soul, and said to all, ''Keep out." Now you 
explore my soul's most secret recesses and I cry, 
"Keep in." There you have found me, the one 
unknown to all — yes, scarcely known to me, my- 

37 



self. And what have you discovered? Joy, 
sorrow, laughter, tears, pleasure, pain, mirth, 
melancholy, vast emotions filling worlds of won- 
der — all stirred or soothed by you. 

Morning. 

Last night you laid your lips upon my heart 
and told it to beat in peace. It was as if an 
angel fluttered into a wild aching soul and shed 
healing herbs upon its sad distress. 

Only those who have passed through terrible 
tests of spiritual and material vicissitude, 
through heart-breaking ordeals, through bitter 
disappointment in the realm of the ideal can 
know what they have endured in escaping de- 
struction. It has been said such men are saved 
from madness because memory fails to revive 
the sensations of the time : the mind will not go 
through the same trial a second time. With 
me it has been somewhat different. I schooled 
myself at an early age to pass without regret 
and complaint to the next thing my hand must 
do. I don't mean I was always successful in 
this respect — far from it; bitterness often re- 

38 



mained for a long time. Still, I don't think I 
have wasted much thought on my many failures, 
some successes, and innumerable disappoint- 
ments. Usually when I was struck down I got 
up again, no matter what was the state of bone, 
flesh, mind, heart or soul. I faced up to the 
antagonist — I never withdrew. I knew retreat 
meant worse than death. Retreat of the indi- 
vidual is humiliating to God. I once said in 
some speech, "Retreat from an ideal is desertion 
to tyranny, — it is betraying the hopes of liberty 
to the minions of oppression." 

Retreat I have never known. Never have I 
conceded one jot of principle to convention. 
The drilling I have given myself has meant 
material discomfort; the loss of popularity and 
of the advantages of position and office. Well, 
no one can say of me that I ever thought more 
of my material well-being than of the success 
of my cause. 

Now what has all this to do with the rosy 
hopes you bring as you did last night? This: 
You have sent my mind like a shuttle whizzing 
back and fro in memory's machine weaving new 

39 



fabrics from rejected or forgotten material. 
The useless past is now a fruitful river bearing 
rich cargoes. That past, the past that was un- 
known to all but you, is now a book I can take 
up and read without sadness. It was all neces- 
sary to make a man of me for you. So the rosy 
hopes you bring, my love, are those which I not 
long ago buried as wholly or in part unreal- 
izable. Renascence ! 

Oh, mother of my new life, what I want to 
learn, to know, to do, for the glory of you ! 

October 2y. 
You know what you have done ? You have 
given me the confidence I have lacked ever since 
I took up a pen to write. You have made a 
writer of me. And this is how it came about : 
my love for you impelled me to try verse once 
more. Humbly, humbly, I made a fresh start. 
After a while the old love of making verses 
took hold of me and as you encouraged me by 
liking them I worked every day for an hour 
or so on lyrics. Essential practice! Then I 
began to notice my prose was purer, simpler, 

40 



smoother. You see the refining influence of 
verse on prose! You did it. But, precious 
love, what marvelous things you have done for 



me! 



Later. 
The finest instinct of this creature is to be 
in contact with you — just like an embryo. In- 
tuitively it would not be bom to be parted from 
you. Its intelligence is focussed on you, always 
in the direction of your mind. It would usurp 
your thought, monopolize your attention. And 
what imagination would it let loose that did not 
fly on halcyon wings to you? 

Thursday evening. 
Oh, darling, to get away from the turmoil of 
existence for a while ! Just long enough for the 
overstretched nerves to relax and regain their 
normal. To shut out the merely temporal, to 
hide from the strife of superficial factions, to be 
deaf to applause, and mute to the entreaty of 
ignorance and oppression. Just to have my 
angel in a heaven for two, where mind might 
rise again on love's wings to touch the farthest 

41 



stars. It is peace I want, contemplative peace. 
Your lap for my head, your hands in mine. 
The journey to you has been long. 

November 3. 
The dawn was sublime. A great sable cloud 
shaped like an egg with frayed edges lay like 
a pall in the east. It was black enough at times 
to keep the stars in view even when the horizon 
below the cloud was suffused with pink, roseate 
green, corn-tinted blues. The sun came up, a 
ball of burnished copper almost red, and then 
the cloud parted into long wreaths of sable, 
then mouse grey, growing fainter and fainter, 
until they fell into ripples, like the sea ebbing 
on a shallow shore, taking glowing purples and 
soft reds from the effulgence of the sun. The 
blues in the night sky as dawn spread to the 
high heaven were so beautiful in changing tones, 
growing lighter and warmer, that I could have 
cried for you to come and look at the mystery 
of colour and rejoice in prayer with me. 



42 



November 4. 
When I am away from you there is only one 
way I can keep myself in control, and that is to 
fling my passion into my words. Many a time 
I have found repose after hours of writing to 
you. The labor of fashioning some verses, 
some letter, in which I have poured out the pain 
and joy in my soul, has left me triumphing 
calmly over the smouldering flame which 
threatened to consume me. It is quite impos- 
sible to tell you what I sometimes have to en- 
dure when I am alone. Like a living, conscious 
half of a severed body I seem to go staggering 
to find the other half — you — for equilibrium's 
sake. Am I mad? Now, at this moment, I 
want to hear your voice, I want to go out in 
the rain and walk as far as the house, I want to 
be beaten, subdued, suppressed. Why, I left 
you only an hour or so ago, and I feel as if we 
had been parted for years. Are you safe ? Are 
you happy? Are you — oh, a thousand ques- 
tions clog my mind. Love, I know not what it 
is. All I know is I suffer. Spiritual unrest. 
A soul in agony. It shakes me, like a rushing 

43 



blast tearing through a forest. Momentarily 
I am swept — a surge rises in my soul and I am 
bowed like a gale-struck sapling. All the 
blacks and blues, silver streaks, and tumbling 
shadows of a portentous storm I see and feel. 
Then I seem to stand on a precipice and know 
the earth will slip away, and I go reeling down 
to limbo. I hear crepitant sounds not in my 
ears but crashing in my soul. Then I lie ex- 
hausted for a while — until I can take the pen 
and write myself into sane communion with 
you. 

Oh, my dear love, forgive me. What a 
wretched creature you have taken! How 
miserable, apart from you! How weak, how 
insecure! I wish — fervently — you could take 
me away, and lock me up somewhere where none 
but you might see me. Then I would be the 
happiest prisoner keeper ever guarded. I want 
nothing but you. You are my sun, my earth, 
my all. Without you I am the last man on 
the cinder crust of a desolated world. 

What is it you have done to me? Do you 
know? Impossible! Can I tell you? That, 

44 



too, is impossible. How can I tell you the in- 
cidents of each vibration of an earthquake? 
You wizard- — you have the secret of rejuvena- 
tion. Metamorphosis! Fundamentally I am 
changed. In everything. I am younger and 
wiser. You make me conscious of genius. 
Absurd! Yes, but you do. I am happy in 
my woe. Even pain coming from you exceeds 
in joy all happiness apart from you. You 
make me suffer and I rejoice. I wish some- 
times you could intentionally make me suffer 
for you. So you send me swinging between ex- 
tremes of happiness and misery and heaven and 
hell. I touch joy out of woe, and happiness 
gains a higher bliss when out of sadness I rise. 
Mistress of my every mood, you have wrought 
most wonderfully another being— I am not; 
myself is now another. I know not yet this 
new one: he is too complex, too supernatural, 
too deep. An amazing, elusive, passionate, 
adoring, fertile child your love has laboured to 
bring forth. It is the child of your splendid 
love. And what will you do with it? How 
succour it? How train it? I am of you. 

45 



With a sense and understanding never inherited 
by any child, I feel a part of you. It is a feel- 
ing as deep as anguish, as wide as eternity, and 
as high as heaven's throne. All the faculties I 
possess are conduits — you the source. ,You im- 
pel my thought, my action : my senses are tribu- 
taries which flow from the great stream of your 
generous self — mouths of the sacred stream 
which flows into the ocean of the orient. My 
fount, my center, my rock ! 

At midnight. 

Love, what, after all is said, am I but some- 
thing you have made out of the purest motives 
of your own being? You have salved me. I 
was a spiritual wreck, thrown up by the gales 
of disappointment on to the rocky, jagged crags 
of political despair, artistic chagrin and spiritual 
starvation. There I was left to be beaten to 
pieces by the tempests of revenge : an old hulk, 
a memory of what might have been, a thing 
suggesting vast possibilities lost. 

You salved me — you did what others thought 
impossible. You, you alone, drew me from 

46 



the rocks of oblivion and set me once more 
sound and taut on the waves of great endeavour. 
Now I ride the seas — the thing you have re- 
made — launched once more, to carry freights of 
good tidings to mankind; a better, swifter, 
safter ship than ever before. 

I am your vessel which will sail unknown 
seas and bring back lovely, useful cargoes to 
those who hunger intellectually and spiritually. 

November 8. 
Your dear letter was here when I got back 
last night. How I loved it! All day long I 
had desired it. "The slender peninsula of 
blue" is fine. Then "the clouds of purple and 
gold delight seemed to hold the sun upon their 
laps" is worthy of Shelley. My darling, you 
must write; you are full of delicious poetic 
imagery and you need only practice and per- 
suasion to do really good work. I rave against 
the conditions which prevent your having time 
to find yourself, and I grow wild with im- 
patience to be with you always so that we may 
gain worth-while things from closer union. 

47 



Heavens! The activities of doing nothing; 
the waste of precious hours, the consorting with 
dull, uninteresting folk. It is really a mad life 
we lead. Just think of our being parted for 
five days for the things I do ! A criminal sacri- 
fice. 

I was up early and hoped the morning would 
be mine for you, my sweet. Alas! at eight- 
thirty the telephone started. A hitch in to- 
day's noon arrangements; booked to speak at 
two separate luncheons at the same hour. It 
took all morning to straighten things out. I 
began at one place at twelve-thirty, the other at 
one-fifteen. They have no mercy, these folks. 

What on earth do I get out of a life like this 
that is of the slightest value to us? Only fret- 
fulness, weariness, and disgust. 

Friday morning. 
I never realized before this year that the 
highest duty is the full, free expression through 
intellectual media of our soul's vast desires. 
Who made me realize that there is greater than 
life? You taught me that the love which 

48 



inspires — more, creates, is greater than life. 

And what is conduct but the highest expres- 
sion of our own real selves? It is the working 
out of all that is God-like in us. Oh, world, 
inane, obtuse, awry, what have you done with 
the nobility of man's own self? 

What is the test? Are we true to ourselves? 
Am I afraid of I, myself? No, never. To be 
afraid of the real in me would be a blasphemy 
against my Creator. I am I ! 

Tradition says duty is not to self, but to 
something other. It says duty is subjugation, 
repression, stultification of self. But what says 
self? Sacrifice your best on the altar of do- 
mestic and social duty? Now sacrifice carries 
with it the sense of having set aside some deep 
desire. There it is. What can be plainer? 
So we sacrifice the dearest, most precious aspira- 
tions of our true selves for — well, for what? 
That doesn't matter much. But this is the 
point : the very sacrifice when made is usually a 
brazen lie. 

We have lied to the God within us, we, in 
doing the duty imposed from without, are guilty 

49 



of abominable falsehood to the wish within us. 
If there be no deep longing, no desire to realize 
the joy, the sorrow, the pain, which stirs our 
souls, how can there be sacrifice? 

Consider the modem attitude to life. Our 
friends roll off sentences of wisdom from 
Shakespeare or Nietzsche, Emerson or Whit- 
man. They extol the passages in high terms of 
praise, and, by heaven, the first time they are 
confronted with the choice of being true to 
themselves I'm blest if they don't do the other 
thing. Is it any wonder keen observers of men 
and life turn away and spew the horrible mess 
out of their mouths for cleanliness' sake? 

Let courage and resolution be our torch- 
bearers — they will make the way clear and 
smooth. No longer shall we find our path 
blocked by meanness, pettiness and vanity. 
We shall do all that is just. No thoughtless 
action of ours will cause our dear ones pain. 
But we shall not lie to our own souls by mis- 
leading those we love into thinking a sacrifice 
of the best that is in us is necessary to obtain a 
moment's happiness for them. Happiness is 

50 



never realized by causing pain to the real. 
Happiness never depended on a sacrifice yet. 
Jesus, Saki-Muni, Confucius, all the great ones 
down to Emerson and Nietzsche demand self- 
realization. The Kingdom of God is within 
you, — there it is in a nutshell. 

November lo. 

I did not know what I should find. But the 
mystical in you as in life, in art, in nature, is 
that which appeals, influences, affects, permeates 
all my being. There it is. That strange call- 
ing from the subconscious to the conscious. 
The mystery which passeth all understanding, 
which is felt but cannot be explained. 

Do you know there is a parallel in this? My 
quest in all its journeyings reminds me of my 
broken desires. So love binds together where 
the strong vital impulse seeks consummation. 
And, as Bergson would say, things are taken by 
storm. So I was taken. So you were taken. 
And what now? What will you do with me, 
what make of me? Do you really know what 
you have won? It might be something worth 

51 



while yet. Something worth remembering. 

It is strange, isn't it? — the work I do is not 
the work which satisfies me. Praise is sweet 
to many, but I want quiet months away from 
polemics where in some still grove with you I 
might do a few pages to be remembered. 

Ever since I began to write with a serious 
end in view — I think I was fifteen — I have 
dreamed of a day when I could express myself 
in literature. Then the mad years when I ran 
riot through all the passions, and learned, so 
early, what I was, but never sounded the depths 
of my nature ! Youth passed like a fragrance 
carried by a sirocco; and when I came here — it 
was indeed a New World for a young man old 
in many ways. But Youth flowered peren- 
nially in me, and where the glow of sincerity 
touched me I bloomed into poetry and song. 
An all-consuming hunger for knowledge 
gripped me. To know, to test, to brace my- 
self. The quest was long — ^painful. A pil- 
grimage through the bitterest poverty to know- 
ledge. What I want is of the Mind and the 
Soul ! I know of no material gift I could win 

52 



that would for itself be worth an hour's exer- 
tion. Some day I will tell you of that time be- 
tween twenty and twenty-five. Alone — quite 
alone — sometimes for long months — living on 
books, on the barest fare. Then the play, jour- 
nalism, criticism. Dear me, it is so strange 
to look back — I feel as if I were writing of 
some one else. Then I thought the time had 
come when I should do good work. But the 
many issues made for versatility and led me 
off the narrow path to — what ? — Fame. Fame, 
that really did not bother me at any time. 
How I worked, though — at nothing worth re- 
membering. Writing plays, libretti, articles, 
short-stories, verse, acting, producing plays — 
but study was the saving grace of those wild 
days. Perhaps I was too popular too soon — 
certainly, popularity did not mean worth. 
When I reached the time of real trial, when I 
felt I must try, I was lonely — no one cared. 
I did some things — but there was no response. 
And I cannot work alone now. The early 
years were too hard, it cost too much to learn 
the little, and there are some marks left of that 

53 



time which I shall always wear. I must work 
for some one who will understand — some one 
who will have faith in and love for those dear 
things which are the very breath of my en- 
deavour. 

When you came, at the very time I had 
broken my pledge to myself to abstain from 
mere writing for gain, I was drifting towards 
the superficial. The old desire was about 
crushed. A year or so before you came I had 
said, "Too old. Dream no more." Only 
metaphysics and philosophy were to be sacro- 
sanct. It was nauseating to go back to my 
old occupation, but I went. That was the 
measure of my defeat. Strange that you 
should come just when I was most conscious 
of my artistic abasement. My position and in- 
fluence were not to my taste. The two great 
questions — constitutional and economic — were, 
apart from party measures, of deep interest to 
me ; but they were half- won and done when you 
came that summer and wakened me again. 
You have seen the plain in winter's grip — cold, 
hopeless, gray, and bleak — suddenly under a 

54 



warm sun stir with all the sweet impulse of the 
spring? How can I tell you? There is no 
simile. You came. 

I have told you the rest — told you the bare 
story. Now do you understand? Out of the 
mire of worthless effort up to the work-dream 
of my youth. Again and now. After twelve 
years of suspense ending in defeat, you come 
and revive the desire for sincerity and excel- 
lence. 

Thursday. 
Through you to the Hellenic! From my 
medieval attitude back through you to the pure 
form. There is all that purity of conduct, 
fixity of purpose, sweet constancy in you that 
impresses me in Greek ways. What shall we 
do together? Perhaps I shall write some real 
romance of two lovers in a modern world, and 
revive all the old sweet feeling which came 
again to earth when Abelard and Aucassin 
awoke the strings with love's best music in the 
human heart. 



SS 



November 13. 
Freedom! Creation cannot be without it. 
They are synonymous terms. Yet freedom is 
not. Man thanks the Creator for his gifts and 
straightway enacts laws limiting the use of 
them. That is why man dare not worship the 
Creator in the open and alone. He must have 
a church and many present. Sinners love com- 
pany in their hours of contrition. 

Later. 
It is our circle of friends that narrows the 
world into a small compass. I don't like to be- 
lieve it, but somehow it seems the world of 
thought is not wide and we who think a little 
are united like a family, like a clan. 

November 14. 
When I was a boy a paid parson was to me 
a very poor specimen of humanity, for to my 
mind truth should be free. Then, of course, I 
did not understand the economic system. Now 
I have learned that truth earns the lowest wage, 
and the nearer truth a person preaches the lower 

56 



the wage he is paid. There is no financial divi- 
dend for truth. 

Sunday Morning. 
To Art and all that makes for the sum of 
happiness let us consecrate ourselves and cele- 
brate the joys we feel. We have our lives to 
live, and there has been too much sadness in the 
recent years. Our souls deserve refreshment, 
and our hearts want some of the melody of 
spring. All this we can enjoy if we are only 
true to the best and greatest within us. 

November ig. 
I have been standing before Rodin's "Hand 
of God," that marvellous portrayal of the first 
embrace, the primeval kiss, as God,, in a mo- 
ment of joy, tenderly created man and woman. 
The love which animates the beautiful hand in- 
fuses warmth and impulse into the entwined 
figures breaking into shape from the formless 
clay. The uncontracted knuckles, the deep 
shadows lying between the second and third 
fingers, the third finger lying over the point of 

57 



the fourth, indicate easy and tender restraint. 
All the action is in the finger-tips, and all the 
power, the directing force, is in the thumb which 
supports the man's thigh and upper leg, as they 
rest in the winding arm of the woman — the 
man's head falling upon her bosom, and her 
face pressed down close to his. The figures 
come from the hand of the Creator, entwined 
like the petals of an unfolding flower. Won- 
derfully, indeed, does the piece proclaim the 
eternal truth that men and women leave the 
hand of God as free creatures blessed with love ; 
and with love in our own eyes, we can discern 
the love in the artist's soul. 

Evening. 
I was told this morning I should be the 
proudest man in America. I am. But they 
don't know why. 

Friday Evening, 
"The stanchions of life are strong in every 
age and station ; we make idols of our affections, 
idols of our customary virtues; we are content 

58 



to avoid the inconvenient wrong and to forego 
the inconvenient right with almost equal self- 
approval until at last we make a home for our- 
selves among negative virtues and cowardly 
vices." Yes, that is true enough. But the 
statement raises the whole question of existence 
from ethics to culture, and I do not think Stev- 
enson was deep enough to challenge modernity. 
The inconvenient wrong may be the funda- 
mental right, and the inconvenient right may be 
in violation of natural laws. Louis was no 
Nietzsche, and incompetent to re-value values. 
We are human enough to try to justify our 
actions in accordance with the law of being. 
. . . That is why ours is the day of negative 
virtues and cowardly vices. Shakespeare went 
deeper than Stevenson and Nietzsche; Friar 
Lawrence hit the nail on the head squarely: 

"Virtue itself turns vice, being unapplied, 
And vice sometimes by action dignified." 

Love is the governor of our lives, and will 
decree against the most cherished traditions. 
So little is love understood that the whole 

59 



conventional world stands aghast at its simplest 
commands; its most natural claims are de- 
nounced and scorned, and when it rises to divine 
heights it is sneered at and derided by parson, 
pharisee and poltroon. Let us make a set of 
laws, one age says, and another spends its whole 
time trying to abolish them. So generations 
and centuries pass, doing and undoing. Bung- 
lers at play with the dearest things of existence, 
blundering on through misery and woe to 
thralldom and emasculation. Stevenson saw 
clearly the effeminacy of his age and lamented 
the cost of the chivalry of the courageous "sin- 
ner." Whatever you do that is essential, that 
springs from the very centre of your being, do 
with all your naked unashamed might. That 
I think might be a fair statement of his attitude 
to life. But his pen was, after all, a roving 
weapon, busy with deeds of derring-do. The 
philosophy of the inner life was never touched 
by him. Yet he, himself, was full of the pro- 
found. His characters were forged in action 
and died in strife. He was a contradiction and 
an anomaly, — imperialist and conquest seeker 

60 



combined in a feeble, sickly constitution. There 
is a bravery of soul higher by far in quality than 
any courage of the body. The flesh that quails 
not before a cutlass may be brave, but the soul 
that braves tradition and brooks the jibes of the 
conventionalist transcends all models of cour- 
age that land or sea records. Stevenson him- 
self is the greatest character, in this respect, 
that he invented. His life was his greatest 
work. Into it he crowded more essential ac- 
tion that he gave us in all his stirring novels. 

Sunday. 
My whole life seems to wait on a word from 
you. It is as if you held an avalanche in place 
by mere silence, when one word would loosen 
the mountain and send it crashing down to the 
torrents and rivers of strenuous activity. 

November 24. 
What a really sensitive creature I have be- 
come since I have known you! You have re- 
fined all my blunt qualities away. Such a love 
as mine must do that. It is like the soul of a 

61 



religious ascetic, all light, tremulous and fine; 
sensitive to every mass, every object which 
comes near it. You know I hang upon the 
murmur of your lips like a leaf upon an aspen 
bough, turning and fluttering all day long. I 
shall never be different now and, if my moods 
did not pain you, I should say 'Thank God." 
I would rather love you as I do than know long 
hours of peace. I would rather die each time 
we part than leave you with a happy feeling in 
my heart. 

Tuesday Evening. 

Do you know what your letters mean to me? 
They are seals which fix me to life when I am 
away from you. 

December i. 

Nietzsche has explained you to me in many 
ways. I had read many wonderful pages on 
the Greek chorus, how tragedy first evolved 
from it and then became epitomized in the unit 
character. I had forgotten so much of it. 
Some day we shall read together the great 
tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. Then 
you will see clearly what I mean when I say 

62 



that you are Greek. The reason you have so 
much transcendental joy in you is because you 
contain all the essential elements of tragedy. 
Like Nature: pain, travail, sorrow — joy, pleas- 
ure, mirth. You cannot have the one set of 
emotions in reality unless you have the other. 

Sunday Evening. 
Have you looked at ''Self-Reliance" again? 
What do you think? Is it not vital? We do 
not realize ourselves. We exist under the 
tyrannies of marriage, home, and family, and 
no matter how servile we are, how deep our 
subjugation, we find neither happiness for those 
we love nor peace for ourselves. Our lives 
unperfected go in chains, from the time we 
should be wholly free, down our finest years to 
the end. It is all wrong, monstrously, cruelly 
wrong. The system is rotten to the core. It 
violates every law of the divine, and makes a 
merciless hydra of God. Our souls are not our 
own — they belong to the home, our children, 
society. Our minds are encased in traditional 
falsity and canonical nonsense. Self-reliance, 

63 



forsooth ! Would there were in this age ! But 
a change is coming. I feel it, I know it. 
Revolution is in the air. Mark me, we shall 
live to see a social earthquake. And if I can 
only get down to real solid work we — ^you and 
I — shall have something to do with it. I know 
my own power, and if I am to be a factor in 
turning the world's thought I must first state 
my case clearly, lucidly, in simple Saxon prose. 
In essay and fiction — I can do both, under 
proper conditions now I have a true compan- 
ion, one who will be interested in my work. 

Friday, g A.M. 
I did not let myself become discouraged yes- 
terday by your reference to the future. While 
you were speaking I wondered what the effect 
on me would be. I know myself so well now 
that I arm against all doubts concerning the 
plan of my life. You wished you were as san- 
guine as I? There is no reason why you should 
wish and not become so ; you are the stronger in 
many respects. The Power to Will is within 
us. 

64 



I must be sanguine. I could not live a day 
without my hopes. What is it lifts me out of 
hours of despair but the knowledge that you 
love me, the belief that such love as ours will 
be in close association blessed? Why, my be- 
loved, there is nothing for me to live for if I 
have not you. And there is a future for me. 
It is all locked in the breast of my lovely one. 
Sometimes I look far ahead and see a man do- 
ing positive work of beauty, inspired by his 
living muse, passing days and nights of ar- 
tistry, glorying in the labour of love just to 
see pride shining in her beaming eyes. Such 
a vision can only arise out of a sanguine 
soul. 

I must be sanguine, because the law of my 
being is progress. The world drags hard to 
win me back to pessimism. 

Last night I was depressed with the thought 
of what would happen to me now if I lost you. 
Strange thought, moving like dim light through 
the dark recesses of my mind. A consciousness 
of quick decay filled me as I pondered the 
thought. It came creeping over me that spir- 

65 



itual and mental decay would take place while 
the physical frame perished more slowly. 

Yes, I want to live. But the only universe 
in which I can now move and live and have my 
being is that in which you are the sun. All 
other worlds are cold and dark for me. You 
are the day of my system. When my sun is 
hidden by the clouds of absence, though I know 
the orb of my existence is shining on other lives, 
night falls on me. And when night comes I 
droop, though tossed frantically by the wind. 
What have I to sustain me but your love and 
the hope of bliss in our association? 

If a time should come when I must be de- 
stroyed — destroy thou me, O Sun of my being, 
bum me up. In pity leave not one shred of 
soul or mind or body. Let me not decay. 
Consume me. completely. 

December 8. 

On Saturday at dinner I sat next to a Dane, 
a painter. He interested me ver}' deeply. 
There is a stretch of dunes not far from here, 
where Southern plants grow in profusion. 
The place is sheltered from the North, and he 

66 



says it is a mass of glorious bloom in the spring. 
Western flowers grow there. Strange beauties 
finding warmth out of their climes. All the 
while he spoke of that wild spot I thought of 
you. He told me of a wood he saw in winter 
where a wondrous thorn clad in silver refined 
the vistas of grim, black trunks. Nature re- 
fining the landscape even in the snow and frost. 
Then of colours he spoke, reading the cryptic 
blendings of atmosphere and hills, sky and 
water, prairie growths and distances. 

What a relief to find among men a man who 
understands the mystical and is not afraid to 
explain it to himself ! Like Coleridge — an ab- 
solute is the quest. And he, too, says all art 
must be sincere. So with love — the test is sin- 
cerity, there is none other. But the absolute in 
you! What a quest! Dare I search? Per- 
haps it is as well the mystery lies hidden be- 
yond the reach of the human mind. As I love 
Nature, as I worship the sincere in Art, as I 
adore the fountains of life, so I love, I worship, 
I adore — sweet mystery! Will you ever un- 
derstand? Just as I see the Great Finger 

67 



tracing out the schemes of Nature, so I see her 
dear influence shaping my poor life. So be it, 
and Amen ! 

December ii. 

I had Frank Duveneck all to myself for 
hours at the Museum. Just imagine! The 
old master showed me everything — all the 
famous etchings — those which set London on 
fire when Lady Colin Campbell showed them. 
You remember the Whistler row. B. said 
Duveneck never spent a morning like this. He 
took me all over the gallery, told me the his- 
tory of his pictures and marbles. He even 
spoke of his wonderful wife. Why weren't 
you here? B. said in all the years he had 
worked with Duveneck he never knew him in 
so grand a mood. You know he scarcely ever 
lets any one see the etchings. He is sending 
me photographs of three or four. 

That morning with Duveneck will never be 
forgotten; true nobility and gentleness are al- 
ways to be found in a truly great artist. The 
charm of that old giant is sublime. He has 
been everywhere, seen everything, knows every- 

68 



body. What a man! Though artists journey 
from all parts of the world to see him he re- 
mains unaffected, simple, and reverential. 
Last week Blashfield spent a day with him. 
They talked of John Sargent and the work he 
is doing in Boston. B. told me these two big 
fellows spoke of Sargent with all the deep ad- 
miration of earnest students. How fine! 
That is so beautiful to me, darling, that grace 
in the master artist which preserves the spirit in 
its glow and the mind from satisfaction and 
decay. Therein lies the secret of sweetness and 
gentility which give strength to creators. 

This story I must tell you of his great land- 
scape, the one of the farm, bridge, and stream. 
Duveneck was wandering in Bavaria around 
the Oberammergau district when he came to 
an old disused mill. It was so quiet and aloof 
from the hurly-burly of the crowd that he 
longed to have it for a studio. After some 
searching he found the owner who with some 
persuasion let Duveneck take possession; but 
nothing was to be disturbed. The proprietor 
however became interested in the artist's work 

69 



and soon gave consent for Duveneck to make 
some structural alterations. Windows were 
put in, some partitions and doors. There 
Duveneck painted for long periods, and to that 
mill many of the Munich men went and lost 
themselves in their work. 

I wish you could have heard him tell the 
story; the telling had all the naive quality of 
the place itself. He was like a bashful boy 
relating an incident of goodness in which his 
own merit was suppressed. 

Mrs. A., the sculptor, came last night to 
hear the play. She had heard from L. of my 
morning with Duveneck; she was amazed to 
learn how generous he had been to me. I 
should say Mrs. A. was present when I met 
Duveneck at the Museum, but she had to run 
away to a class. She told me how unusually 
honoured I had been, for Duveneck is shy and 
after a few formal greetings he wanders off 
usually to his students. 

After all these years it seems very strange 
I should meet him and we should draw so close 
in an hour or two. I heard nothing but 

70 



Duveneck, Duveneck, Duveneck from the big 
men years ago in London, Paris, and Munich, 
and now to know him ! It is the idea of your 
beautiful poem. How long we wait ! Things 
dearly sought do come, though. You know 
that now. The tender green will some day 
clothe our wishes so long as the sap of big de- 
sire is there to animate our souls. To me yes- 
terday morning was one of real communion, 
and it would have gone into the chambers of 
memory as a perfect sojourn with greatness if 
my beloved had been there. 

December /j. 
I did not tell you about H.'s pictures. He 
has some really good ones. A Blakelock, eight 
inches square, which is a gem, — all the char- 
acteristics of a Dupre. It is a fine woodland 
scene dominated by a copper beech in full 
foliage. Then there is a gem of a Rousseau 
with several figures in it. The locale is sylvan 
with a pool of water; two big dense trees on 
the bank. A picture full of charming detail. 
A Greuze, too; the wife of the painter. The 

71 



termagant is kneeling at her bedside praying. 
Her character and the devotional position are 
incompatible, but her beauty of the dolly order 
is painted exquisitely. The picture was in the 
Wallace collection before it was given to the 
British nation. The Antonella Christ is a 
superb example of early 15th century work. 
Rightly I think it deserves the title of "The 
Man of Sorrows." But then I can't work up 
much enthusiasm for the pictures of that school. 
Saints are above me. Still, this Christ is 
unique. The gentleness, pity, refinement of the 
face are wonderful traits searching for one's fin- 
est sensibilities. Its simplicity is irresistible. 

H. has a Francis Murphy in yellow-gray 
tones, with a splash of pearly light on a strip 
of water, which is as fine as a good Daubigny. 
The feeling for the mystical in nature is most 
tenderly expressed in this work. It contains 
some of the exquisite to be found in Corot's 
scenes. 

hater. 

My love, you are quite wrong about cul- 
tivated people being the cause of what you call 

72 



the homey feeling in my letter. Wicked girl, 
you know well enough what the cause was! 
Your own dear letters. 

You are my soul and I am nothing but a 
hollow thing when you are away. 

15 December. 

I was a wanderer no one cared to know. No 
one found the real me. She made me out of 
chaos. I am the creature of her love. Her 
title to what she has made is complete, funda- 
mental. And those same gifts she used to make 
me what I am came down to her from Thy right 
hand', Creator. 

Rise, my soul, and greet the sun of thy be- 
ing! Laugh and be mirthful, the rays of her 
eyes are shining. Caress each beam which 
shines from her glorious soul. Up, up, rise 
to the height of her charm and her goodliness. 
Her grace is a tribute to the work of God's ten- 
derness. Shall I despond? No, O my soul, 
what matters? — She loves me. She sheds the 
joy of living as she walks. Fragrance is wafted 
from her hair. 

73 



Tuesday. 

You are not of this age. You come from 
Delphi. There is a beauty which modernity 
cannot produce : that I saw in your enthralling 
face last night. I know it for an ancient love- 
liness, something sprung from the very source 
of perfect form. Divine woman. Will you 
really drive me mad with Dionysian delight? 
You will. Perhaps that is how the goddesses 
slew their votaries, and you, their mistress, their 
oracle, long forgotten, but revealed again by 
me, will slay me for having seen the wonder 
of refinement in form and joy. But let me 
live. Let me be your soul's voice — or shadow? 
The world must be told of you, and none but 
your worshipper can tell. Do you know your- 
self? No. Then if I die who is there left to 
sing your praise? Let me live to see the glory 
of my discovery. Beauty needs a poet, and the 
world needs poetry. Give me inspiration 
through the lovely beams which light your eyes 
and set my soul ablaze. 

Where is beauty? In the laughter quiver- 
ing in my darling's eyes. Where is beauty? 

74 



In the flushes, like June's morning sky, which 
animate her cheeks. Where is beauty? In 
the movement of her god-like form. Where is 
beauty? In the beseeching languor of her 
throat, in the breathings of her kindly breasts. 
What is art? Why, you are the thing which 
all art yearns to produce in human form. You 
are the proud, defiant embodiment of every bliss 
great artist ever yearned to create. 

Greek mistress, wonder of the days when 
men were noble and died for love of beauty, 
tell me, are you some sublime Aphrodite 
chiseled by great Praxiteles, into whose marble 
form Zeus again has breathed, stirring it to 
life? Or are you Galatea, and I Pygmalion, 
turning my work to beauteous life? Tell me, 
maid, what is it ; this spell, this magic, you em- 
ploy, which makes of me a reed bent to the will 
of your loveliness? It is beauty, beauty, 
beauty ! What I have sought all my long life 
and found not until now. Oh, be radiant, my 
gem of old Greek days, my precious vessel of 
all the things of joy I have desired, be as you 
were yesterday, a glowing delight in a prism of 

75 



immortal joy. Gleam of a million facets, shine 
mercifully on me and deny me not. 

Thursday. 
In that exhibition of Ben Foster's work, in 
the Museum, you will find the lovely melan- 
choly of hills and trees. You must see his pic- 
tures. Go some day soon when you have an 
hour or two to spare. And go alone — just with 
my spirit close to your dear heart. Look deep 
into the horizons and let the picture melt into 
your soul, for it is the soul— seeking com- 
panionship. The one near the door — the fine 
sky-line like eyes after many tears: that one 
with faint purples in the background, where on 
a stream running toward you a splash of sad 
clear light makes a mirror for the face of God. 
And then that silver sapling to the left, indi- 
cative of Nature working upwards always to 
higher and still higher forms. On the other 
side of the room, the picture in the centre, a 
hillside. Look into that and see the enchant- 
ing scheme of Nature pointing toward true 
simplicity. There are trunks, like spires, firm 

76 



in the hillside, suggesting to us where growth 
will find a foothold even on a steep. And the 
warm bruised bracken with the peeping stones 
which know no spring or autumn, telling of 
eternity, progression and imperishable love. 
What would I give to be with you ! Just for 
one hour while you looked into those pictures. 
I would remain silent and watch your face 
while your soul would communicate your sen- 
sations. Do you remember the first night I 
read Arnold to you? Do you remember how 
elated I was when I saw how lyrical philoso- 
phies found an echo in your soul? My treas- 
ure, will you ever know what it means to me to 
have found you at last ! 

December ig. 
My love, my gentle Rosalind, what can you 
not do with me? Last night I envied no god. 
Zeus himself held naught in his gift I would 
have envied for a moment. The gift above all 
other gifts was mine. I stood upon the world's 
topmost ridge and felt the breathing of the 
stars. Or was it the sighs of your own warm 

77 



heart infusing youth anew into my stirring 
blood? 

Do you believe in the transmigration of the 
soul? You must. For surely mine goes flut- 
tering after yours when you go far away. I 
am an empty shell wherein a thousand fears 
take shelter when we are parted. If my soul 
were here, no fears of that dread kind which 
afflict my brain and torture me would dare 
molest me. That is it: my soul goes wander- 
ing after you. Else why am I so speedily re- 
freshed the moment I see you after long ab- 
sence? You come, lo! you have not been 
away. The hiatus has been all imagination. 

Sweet one, I envy my wandering soul. 
Leave me not tenantless for long. Some day 
the empty frame may crumble and fall before 
my soul returns. But its abiding place is 
changed. Now it will not stay with me. 
Even now it is away, it will not rest without 
its mate. I find it when our lips touch; in- 
stantly it is there, giving me courage and con- 
fidence. 



78 



December 21. 

We must with courage assert all the strength 
of our souls to maintain from hurt God's holi- 
est treasure — our love. Though we have to 
fight through a world of anguish we must not 
blench; nay, though our hearts bleed for the joy 
we would gain, let us move on to our goal. 
When our hopes are overshadowed by clouds, 
and I cannot bring smiles to your face, at any 
rate I must strive to keep tears from your eyes. 
When our days are distracted by thoughts of a 
world that might try to demean our love, let us 
lift it up above the mire of godless systems. 
Lift it high, up to the throne of God, from 
whence came this. His rarest, loveliest gift. 
Can we prize it too highly? Can we over- 
value its wondrous worth to us? 

Nothing can break my will — not now. I am 
with you keeper of the Creator's secret. It is 
ours to cherish. Shall we be unfaithful to the 
trust? Let all hell itself rise against us — the 
greater the victory. 

Oh, my dear love, my chalice of the beauti- 
ful, do you realize all you have done to me? 

79 



Would you give birth to such a love as mine 
and let anything blast it? It is inconceivable. 
I know, I know, you are fretful, anxious. Do 
I not suffer for you? Is there one disturbing 
thought haunting your mind that does not hurt 
me? Are we not one? Why, I am your 
barometer. Every cloud passing across your 
sweet face is registered in my soul. I would 
give my life to make you happier than you can 
be with me. For what is my life without you? 
There is no life without you. Don't you un- 
derstand the cry that goes out of my soul when 
it is lonely, when it is conscious of its pain ? I 
have nothing to live for if I cannot live for 
you. Every passion for work is centred in 
you, every desire to do something worth while 
depends wholly on you, every dream of the fu- 
ture rises and sets in you. You are everything; 
my breath, my blood, my life. 

And yet, sometimes, you have a way of 
making me feel I mean so little to you. It is 
when your thoughts become lost in the future, 
when through present anxieties you are crowded 
with apprehension and doubt. Then I die in 

80 



a torture of miserable weakness, as I did yes- 
terday. My heart cries out — ''It is useless, you 
cannot help her in her distress!" Perhaps 
there is no pain so deep as that swift thought, 
sharp as a traitor's poignard, which stabs a 
futile soul in the presence of a grieving love. 
The impotency, the blasted futility, of all 
thought, all action amounts to degradation of 
the spirit. 

Later. 

Such a love as mine is a glorification of self- 
ishness. It is jealous of every wayward 
thought, jealous of a fugitive glance. It will 
have nothing less than all. It adores for its 
own joy, it worships for its own delight, it rev- 
erences for its own satisfaction. It shares with 
none. It arrogates to itself complete posses- 
sion. Having given everything — all, it de- 
sires all. 

Oh, beautiful love, what am I? Just the 
thing you have made. A thing to be riven by 
a glance of yours. I cannot be different now. 
Sometimes I am sorry for your sake you have 

81 



done your work so completely; but that is only 
when I feel my love cannot give you warmth 
and strength. But, sweet, I shall try so hard 
to be patient. If I could only hide from you 
my cursed moods and crush the spasms of pain 
which sometimes shake me when I am with you, 
I would be happier. I go from you cursing 
myself for my weakness — distressing you. 
Ah, it is not to distress you, my lovely one, I 
came. 

I wish I could tell you about myself, then 
perhaps you would understand why you are 
indispensable. I have tried several times but 
every effort has been absurdly unsatisfactory. 
There has never been any one upon whom I 
could pour out all my love and its essences, in 
speech, in action, in writing, until now. Not 
one. There was never any one — never. And 
yet I have borne what you have found in me all 
these many long years — carried it safely 
through many purgatories and one awful hell. 
For what you have found must have been in me 
though I were not conscious of it. 

Do I know I love you with all my soul, with 
82 



all my mind? Oh, beloved, who ever before 
shaped in the mould of man had greater cause 
and reason for knowing that? Are you not 
my delight, my vision of heaven? That I may 
touch you, just touch you, now and then, to 
make sure you are flesh and blood. I can be 
so still with you — tranquil, satisfied. Then all 
fierce passions sleep until you give me your lips. 
My dear, dear one, what a love you have 
created in me ! 

Thursday morning. 
Are you holy? I know you are so to me. 
Am I devout? I know you take me near to 
God. Loving you for yourself has made me 
what I am to you. Therefore I can face the 
task, so that I may soon take you to myself and 
give my life to loving you, ever near your side. 
It is wonderful, this love ! It stirs me in super- 
human ways; it dispels weariness, it destroys 
pain ; it conquers all that would oppose or deny 
its right to love you. True, some moods afflict 
me under which fear, pain, dread, fatigue, all 
come binding their tentacles around me, crush- 

83 



ing me, torturing me, for hours, for days some- 
times. But I survive. Why? Because my 
love for you asserts itself and brings hope, joy, 
trust, and energy, in lovely memories, garbed 
in your own radiance, to help me back to 
Heaven again. 

Memories of sweet messages from your de- 
licious lips sent straight to my listening soul 
raise me up from deep despair. One memory 
of a message came just now and thrilled me. 
"Remember, I love you." These are words 
which bind the earth and firmament together, 
words which govern the rising and the setting 
of my sun; the brightness of the stars depends 
upon these words. They are the fundamentals 
of my existence. When they come whispered 
back to me my spirit seeks some cloistered place 
where the world is shut out, or goes roving in 
some embowered garden where the silence is 
wrapped in the fragrance of June's wild flowers. 
In some such quiet place my spirit then com- 
munes with yours. 



84 



2y December. 
Now this year of all the years is drawing to 
a close, ushering in one full of hope, let me, my 
beloved, say, I love you more than ever; my 
love is higher, deeper, broader, more divine. 
And I am younger, happier, more resolute. I 
face the future full of hope; achievement lies 
straight ahead with you. We shall be new 
pioneers. And what have I to thank you for, 
dear love? All I am now, at this moment, 
when my highest desire is to make you proud of 
me. You are the great desire of my life. My 
life? Nay, my life is yours — that is the bright 
consummation of my being. 

2g December. 
Life-giving love, I scarcely realize what I 
have passed through these six weeks. You 
buried the heavy past in a few moments yester- 
day morning. You came like a spring dawn 
full of warmth and changed the whole face of 
the earth; the ice, the snow, the gaunt woods 
and bare hedges were all changed in a twink- 
ling. Then everything pulsated with life. 

85 



Metamorphosis! You govern me as the sun 
the earth. You revive, revitalize me. You 
are my dynamic ! I am dross, drear waste with- 
out you. A sleepless month is all made up in 
strength in one such evening as our last one. 
I see you radiant and I am made new. I hear 
you tell me again, reassure me, and I am all 
confidence and hope. I kiss you and heaven 
is thrown open; pure sheen of golden light 
pours through the splendid portals and I am 
bathed in its glory. You sigh like a flower 
heavy with loveliness and fragrance and I am 
transported into realms of sweet delight. My 
beloved, what treasures of joy you give me. 
Is there no end to the marvelous stores of your 
inherent gifts? I take and take, and more 
breeds on taking. This is the height of my 
joy, and straightway you give me dreams of 
new vistas reaching higher and still higher. 
How am I to tell you what it all means to me? 
Horace, Herrick, Shakespeare, Shelley — no, 
they have said nothing ! 

You are a world of transports, a never-end- 
ing symphony of sweet themes. 

86 



You were lovelier than ever last night. My 
eyes were blest watching your slender arms. 
Your wrists played gracefully liked two water- 
nymphs in sport. I thought of beauty and 
marveled at its entrancing loveliness. Beauty 
is not static, it is not always there. True 
beauty comes in moments of animation, it is a 
quick light in the eyes, a glow in the cheeks, the 
crescendo of a smile, the perfection of a tone. 

January 2, 
I don't know when, in all my life, I have 
felt so keenly the desire to do something really 
great. The music moved me strangely to-day. 
Berlioz and his difficulties came into my mind 
with peculiar force. Then the E Major, 
played so exquisitely by Mr. Ganz, reminded 
me again of those almost insuperable obstacles 
which lie in the path of the artist of big desire, 
and of the painful reactions of mood and cir- 
cumstance which beset us at almost every turn. 
The Fifth — Tschaikowsky's revelation of the 
bitterness of his soul's journey, seemed to me 
to-day to carry a message saying, "You may do 

87 



it, but beware. Suffering for the true artist, 
joy for the true lover." 

Tears water the inspiration of our higher 
moods, and tears enough were shed by the com- 
posers whose works we have heard to-day. 
And I, small person loving the land of the 
giants, feel just now eager to take any suffering 
so long as I may give to you some one work 
which men may know us by. 

Wednesday Evening. 

I understand Verlaine; there is intense en- 
joyment in this pain, but what it costs! To 
have the living love, yeaming, pulsating, cry- 
ing, all day long, for the absent one the night 
will not bring, is pain which thought enjoys be- 
cause it is so real, so very present. 

This week lost must be regained somehow. 
But no hour with you, or that should have been 
spent with you, can be regained. Life is all 
too short, and a day in duration is but a sigh 
in the process of our joy. 



88 



January 4. 

I walked back last night. It was bitterly 
cold, but the heavens were glorious. One star, 
over to the West, shone with unwonted bril- 
liancy. There was a light in your bedroom 
when I passed by. I walked slowly and 
whistled the Siegfried-Brunhilde motive. It 
was 10:40 or thereabouts. Lord, but I was 
cold when I reached here. This Siegfried 
didn't go through the fire last night. 

That star lay over your room. I nearly 
stumbled half a dozen times watching it. It 
was nearly as fine as your eyes when you want 
me. 

Wednesday P. M. 
It was lovely seeing you this morning, a re- 
freshing sight, an hour's restful association. I 
think my mind was too busy with the time of 
our meeting for me to get much sleep last night, 
for yesterday was long and I spent the hours 
wishing them speedily away. How they 
dragged along from two to six ! I tried to for- 
get the time in making the verses, but they 

89 



would not come right until about 6 :30. Then, 
as usual, they came with a rush. 

What a change in a month ! How very un- 
happy we were a month ago ! When we went 
down to the convent this morning I couldn't 
help thinking of that day of tears when you 
and I were so wretched. And now! My 
beauty, this something that has happened is the 
strangest of all the mysteries which we have 
experienced in all our mysterious union. 
Again my mind is at work searching for the 
reason of the change. You are in a way as 
much affected by it as I am. I notice it in 
your voice, your eyes, your whole manner shows 
the change. Some barriers are broken down. 
My beloved is her real self, giving expression 
to the love in her, expressing it freely, happily. 
There was a sweet languor about you, beloved, 
this morning, so winsome, so tender, that I felt 
like taking you in my arms and pressing your 
dear head against my breast — just to kiss your 
hair. Sometimes I want you fiercely — at other 
times I want you as a mother wants a child. 
I want you at all times. Early this morning 

90 



I ached for you. Darling, is it not extraordin- 
ary that you do not know me without restraint? 
You have never known me to give myself up 
passionately to you. Ah, beloved, that is sad. 
It is agony sometimes to keep myself cruelly 
under control. When I say you don't know, 
I mean you don't know what it costs to resist the 
great temptations your loveliness sets for me. 
Well, to know me in that way is not yet. Still 
it lies with you. But my darling must have no 
worry. My pleasure lies in making her happy 
— my deep desires must wait. I wonder when 
you do know me what you will say. 

January 6. 
My angel, come back happier and rested. 
Oh, how I want you — as never before. You 
are right, unsatisfied, unsatisfied. I shall never 
be satisfied. There is a voice crying out for you 
every moment. It will not keep still. 

Later. 
'The moon rising blood-red out of a dark sea 
and a thousand lights dancing about Monte 

91 



Carlo and Monaco." Contrast and balance 
she knows. Setting the forever against the 
perishable work of man. It is good — all of 
it. 

January 8. 
It is not to be imagined what your gifts have 
brought to me. No power of speech or pen 
can tell of all the riches you have won for me. 
What was I a year ago? Ah, then I did not 
know you. Think, how long you were an ideal 
beyond realization. And now, the change lov- 
ing has wrought ! Then, I did not know why 
I lived; now, I live for you. Then, all hope 
of love, once dreamed of as the most beautiful 
aim in life through which perfection might be 
reached, was gone, withered in the years of 
feverish activity, blasted in storms of purpose- 
less manhood. Now, every day is as full of 
real living as a decade was then. My waking 
thoughts are yours, my last conscious moment 
overflows with thoughts of you. I am now a 
world in which you live and move and have 
your being. My day is ordered to your will. 

92 



On your presence depends my every mood. 
You walk with my soul, inhabit my mind, and 
you lighten the gloomy places of my heart. 
My real tasks are fashioned to your pleasure. 
Happiness is found only where you are. I 
leave you and I am sad. I meet you and glad- 
ness thrills again all through me. You are the 
current which sets me in motion. I respond to 
your lightest touch. A glance of yours can 
work a revolution in my soul. You kiss me 
and I am instantly on the threshold of heaven. 
When in my life did I ever dream of such bliss 
as you have brought to me? Loving has made 
me whole ; it has enlarged my vision, broadened 
my mind, refined my sensibilities. I am an- 
other man. You have raised me up to kiss your 
brow, and you have crowned me with the gar- 
land of your love. 

January ii. 

I can't do anything creative while you are 

miles away. My mind will not work. How 

can it when every moment it is occupied with 

extraordinary thoughts of you? Why, I have 

93 



to force myself, literally, to do the humdrum 
things of everyday existence. 

Last night I could not settle down to work 
and in looking about for something to read I 
picked up Bernard Shaw's "Quintessence of Ib- 
senism." Have you read it? It amused me 
vastly years ago when I was about the only 
one lecturing on Shaw. 

lo P. M. 
Did not some one say that those who taste 
celestial joy must pay? Waiting is paying. 
But those who wait long must not mind waiting 
a little longer. Through flowers and merry 
folk last night I saw in a dim light of yellow 
another scene where one came to give a blessing 
to a hungry soul. It was so vivid I almost 
started. 

Could I survive in pessimism? Could I pass 
such nights without the hope that we shall pass 
our days together? 



Q4 



Later. 
What am I without thee, my beloved? An 
autumn leaf upon the gusty winter's wind is 
not so tossed and strayed. Thou art my 
branch, the limb from which I am sprung. 

Thursday morning. 
I woke early this moming and found a book 
near my bed. It is a comparison and analysis 
of William James and Henri Bergson. One pas- 
sage struck me with great force. The author — 
Horace M. Kallen — says, summarizing Plato: 
''What do sense or perception or even dialectic 
reveal, more than the flux of the daily life, in 
its reason and unreason? Nothing: they can- 
not discover the Ideas. But if they cannot, 
love can. And what is love but the yearning 
of a fallen and imperfect thing for its lost per- 
fection? What is knowledge but a procession 
through love back to the heavenly estate of the 
Ideas whence the mind fell? Nay, the mind 
is not mortal, it is immortal. Soon or late it 
recalls in this earthly life the heavenly majesty 
it fell from, it yearns to it from object to ob- 

95 



ject, until finally it throws off its mortality 
and resumes its immortality. It becomes again, 
on earth at rare moments, in heaven eternally, 
one and the same with the eternal realities it at 
other times only conceived." 

A profound statement, eh? You see why 
it caught me? Have I not known the rare 
moments ? Am I not an imperfect thing yearn- 
ing for its lost perfection, only to be found in 
the eternal reality in you? Love can discover 
the Ideas. Love can drive back to the first ac- 
tion of the original mind. Love is beginning, 
becoming, yes, end, if end there be, connecting 
all on the unbroken thread of duration. Love 
transcends all intellectual achievement, for 
knowledge is useless without it. 

Giver of rare moments, how I love you ! 

January 77. 

In these weeks just gone I have been in 

Gethsemane, without a garden — a place of tears 

where no plant could spring up. I have wept 

day and night for you ! I have wept until my 

96 



thought was, There can be no more tears to 
flow. Why, my love, why? Because my 
soul, my mind, my flesh have all cried out for 
you. You have made me wholly dependent 
for any joy in any hour solely on you. You are 
so great a joy for me to look upon, you are so 
sweet to touch, that I leave you with all the 
tremors a zealot would feel on being thrust out 
of the glory of heaven itself. Apart from you 
I feel nothing but palpitating misery hour after 
hour, sometimes a long night through. There 
is that within me which will not be consoled. 
It is for you it cries, and only you will suffice. 
When I leave you, and I have no necessary er- 
rands or meetings, I come here knowing black 
hours lie in wait for me. Do you know what 
your face is to me? It is my sight — ^my eyes 
glory in its beauty. Even your picture can set 
my eyes aglow, can reduce me to tears, can make 
my heart laugh with joy through an infinitude 
of loneliness. 

You have eaten into the marrow of my bones 
— you have consumed me. Every nerve, every 

97 



fibre, throbs for you. The night that divides 
us is the pit of despair; the day that separates 
us is the chasm of unhappiness. 

January 20. 
I cry out of the depths, these depths of de- 
spair into which I am often plunged. Hold out 
your saving hand and raise me up ! I am al- 
ways the better man for these tears and these 
pains, but there have been overmuch of late. 

Wednesday morning. 
One book — one small work — outweighs all 
the chatter of orators and lecturers. For the 
voice is soon lost and the memory of the spoken 
word dies, but the book if it have a message will 
endure. Now, with the printing press and the 
public library, the written word is well-nigh im- 
perishable. 

6P.M. 
I have been away nearly all day with some 
superlative bores. I think Hades, despite 
Dante's experience, must be made up of those 

98 



fools who cannot be suffered gladly. Anyway, 
I am sure there is no hell like that I had to en- 
dure just now with Tom, Dick and Harry. 

January 27. 
I can't tell you how deeply I enjoyed the at- 
mosphere of culture in that little house in V. 
Music had soothed my aching nerves. We 
talked metaphysics, Beethoven, Bach, eco- 
nomics, religion and instrumentation. Berlioz 
— indeed. They were all sound in their differ- 
ing scholarship. The fiddler was a keen Berg- 
sonian, and played Kreisler's Viennese pieces 
like one brought up on the Prater. 

February ist, 
I looked for you at the station though I knew 
you could not be there. That morning when 
you met me came so vividly to my mind. 
Darling, you have crowned me with thousands 
of sweet memories. Gracious actions which 
make me thrill when I think of them. You 
have endeared yourself to me in so many 
splendid ways; you have bound me to you by 

99 



fine things spun out of the very fibre of your 
exquisite being. 

What would I not do to get one glimpse of 
your bonny face before I go to sleep! It has 
been so hard since I left you. Life is pain- 
fully difficult without you. I am starving for 
you to-night. Hungry for your arms. I want 
your breast for my head. God, how tired I 
am! But I shall sleep to-night. I must if I 
am to get through the work this week. 

God bless you and keep you safe. 

Monday evening. 

After seeing the Italians yesterday at the 
museum I worked for several hours on the novel. 
Really the first bit of decent work I have done 
since my return. Three hours spent in revision. 
You don't know what revision means to me. 
It is hard labour. 

The long talk with G. on da Vinci and Credi 
cleared my mind for a while and refreshed me 
like a deep draught of sea wind. You know 
I have never cared much for the Italian school 
of painters. Angels as flat as their halos do 

100 



not interest me. But Leonardo, the giant, fas- 
cinates everybody who will take the trouble to 
know him. Mathematician, chemist, draughts- 
man, architect, musician, poet, goldsmith, jew- 
eler, and painter, he stands back there in the 
15th century the dominating force in the ages 
of art. 

At midnight. 

I told G. about your room. I was in good 
form: I think I described it well. For certain 
reasons the sweet chatelaine was only lightly 
touched. But he said, "I should like to meet 
her, she must be an exceptional woman." You 
see, even when I suppress your contours, lines 
and features, you stand out and demand ac- 
knowledgment. 

I want to tell you of a discovery I made yes- 
terday at the museum. On the arm of the 
Aphrodite found at Aries I saw an armlet mid- 
way between the elbow and the shoulder pit. 
Curious, wasn't it? I think she must be the 
only Aphrodite which wears one. On the arm- 
let are bosses of studs set at equal intervals. 

101 



Quite a coincidence, eh? She is very beautiful. 
The neck is longer than hers of Melos. In her 
right hand she holds a small ball, and in her 
left she grips what I take to be a wooden cup 
with a long shank. Did they play cup and ball 
then? 

Is that pale tint turned brown, or does rose 
mingle with the sunburn as in an Indian's skin? 
Not too brown, darling. The softness of your 
colouring just suffused with the glow of pleas- 
ure, that is what I love. 

February /j. 
Do you know, darling, what it is to be all 
love? Think, my beauty, of a garden all 
bloom, of a flower all fragrance, of a bird all 
song, of a soul all joy. When I say I am all 
love, I mean there is nothing left but love. 
Everything else is gone, resolved, absorbed; no 
trace of the past, with all its triumphs and de- 
feats, its hopes, its disappointments, its ambi- 
tions, its delights. You have drenched me 
with your loveliness — you have bathed me in 
your beauty. I am washed clean of every cor- 

102 



ruption. My body, my mind, and my soul are 
now without stain — for no one shall touch me 
but you, no other thought than of you shall en- 
ter my mind, for no one else will my soul shine. 

Saturday. 

I don't know what to say to you. All night 
long I have yearned for you, craved you, be- 
sought, demanded — oh, I don't know what I 
have not done. Several times I really woke up 
and found myself murmuring words to my 
superb mistress, who makes me dumb when I 
think of all her loveliness. It was long before 
I fell asleep — indeed for hours I lay telling her 
how joy came to my soul in showers of delight 
from her. She loves me. Then the thought 
overpowers me ; the ecstasy of it makes me thrill 
like a glistening star on a brilliant night at 
sea. 

Why have I lived all these years without 
you? Why have I not known these joys be- 
fore? 

Have you seen a bee buzzing over a rich her- 
baceous border heavy with bloom? Watch 

103 



how it goes from flower to flower, touching one, 
lighting on another, burying itself in a deep 
cup, restive, bustling, impetuous thing, dis- 
traught at all the glories it may taste. It has 
no real preference. It is not selecting. No, 
no, — it is the general beauty and abundance 
which confounds its instinct. All is sippable. 
Oh, if it could only light on all at once and col- 
lect all the honeys in one deep draught ! Poor 
wee bee ! I know what it suffers. We are in- 
satiable comrades. 

February 22. 
I am to see you, what joy! Dearest, do you 
know your voice is the only music that ever en- 
ters this room? It is now full of sweet sounds, 
-^olus has set a thousand air waves singing of 
the beauty of a Greek woman in a grove of 
daphne. I know the woman. I shall see her 
this afternoon. Thus joy comes to bless a re- 
cluse. 

Tuesday. 
I want to get back to see that face. Do you 
know how I love that adorable pensive picture? 

104 



If you knew you would be jealous. And if 
you heard what I say to it you would want to 
change places with it. I danced before it last 
night. It likes me to salaam before it; it smiles 
at my antics. We are tremendous pals. 

I was up before six, though it took a long time 
to get to slumberland. My mind was crowded 
last night. But I feel fairly well this morning, 
though I don't relish the journey. Heavens! 
Eighteen out of twenty-four hours. How I 
envy your train-loving brother. It must be an 
extra aense, not apportioned to me, that of lik- 
ing railway travel. I fret and fume most of 
the time. Think of what I suffered before I 
learned to write on the train! Another bless- 
ing you have given. Before this year I spent 
the time mile-counting, mile-timing, to while 
away the hours. Unprofitable exertions. 

March 2. 
It is futile trying to make me think you are 
unequal to a vital emergency. You may really 
doubt your own power of self-assertion, of bend- 
ing influences to your will, of overcoming 

105 



obstacles, of resolving difficulties. That may 
be. But why should you doubt your own in- 
vincibility under test? You would never give 
the lie to your own nature. You would be as 
true to the law of your own being as you are 
true to me. You are stronger by far in some 
respects than I. Would I allow myself to be 
crushed by fortuitous circumstance, or indeed 
by a situation into which I entered voluntarily? 
Never, never, never. I judge you in this by the 
strength of my own soul, and yours is a happier, 
more resolute soul than mine. Yours has not 
the scars which conflict has left on mine ; yours 
is fresher, more buoyant, resilient and dynamic. 
I am not easily misled. The revelations of 
this year leave no doubt in my mind as to your 
astounding capacities. Don't even in jest try 
to belittle them. They are unique. Nothing 
may arise to test you vitally; but if the most 
critical situation were to arise I know you would 
do your being's law no violence. Moreover, 
in the most trying position that redoubtable 
soul of yours would find refreshment in the 
ordeal. 

106 



The reason why I revert to this is because 
I am jealous of the knowledge you have given 
me of yourself. I will not think you are less 
responsible and courageous than I am. Why 
should I? You are a wonderful woman, rare, 
sublime, exalted; and would I suffer a mo- 
ment's thought which would smirch your fame? 
Would I traduce my own soul? 

Wednesday^ just after midnight. 

There are pigeons just outside and my light 
disturbs them. They coo every time I switch 
on the light. The silence is extraordinary. 
Not even the buzz of a motor. 

I couldn't stand it any longer, so I dressed 
at five and went out for a walk. Heavy hoar 
frost. It was misty, and all vague, opaque 
grey shadows across the lake. I went to the 
station and stood for a while near that spot, and 
then walked down the lake front. 

Your letter — how good of you. Two in one 
day! Like a cheering sunburst from out of 
dark clouds. From here I can see my cooing 
friends preening themselves in a corner of the 

107 



shaft. They must have thought last night a 
dozen suns had risen, so often were they dis- 
turbed by my light. 

Thursday afternoon. 

Your letter reached me just before I set out 
to my first meeting. Your mood was mine this 
morning. I read the letter and gathered from 
it a strange strength which poured out of me 
when I spoke. I haven't recovered myself yet. 
It is difficult to write. There was sadness 
somewhere for an hour this morning. Sadness 
which springs from the wells of love, and is 
therefore strong. A sense of facing anything 
and everything; of overcoming, and rising above 
all difficulties set about us in a world hedged 
in. 

Later. 

We must never doubt the wisdom of our 
loving. Either we love or we do not love. 
That is the truth of it, isn't it? Then what 
do we mean when we doubt the strength of 
our love to carry us through all emergencies? 
Surely we mean by that that there is limitation 

108 



to our loving. But that is not so. Emerson 
says, 'The only sin is limitation." Never did 
seer speak deeper truth. The illimitable uni- 
verse itself is no more limitless than our love. 
We are guilty of no sin. We are in accord 
with the virtue of creation and act in harmony 
with the soul of nature. We must not then 
harbour any doubt at all as to the durability of 
our loving in all human circumstances. Our 
love is knit with the imperishable fibre of the 
eternal. We shall never be guilty of limita- 
tion. 

And what is love but the very crown and 
halo of instinct and intuition? It is the height 
of all intellectual attainment; it is imagina- 
tion's purest state, the transcendental. Love is 
for the intellectually elect. You have taught 
me many wonderful things. Indeed, the most 
important things of life and love and death 
were for me in a sealed book, a book you opened 
unto me. I often say you do not realize what 
you have done to me, what you have done for 
me. 

The animals know not love. They are with- 
109 



out intellect and imagination. Instinct gov- 
erns their actions in mating, in breeding. In- 
tuition governs the embryo and its development. 
But animals remain animals. 

With humans instinct and intuition are 
heightened by intelligence. But the millions 
and millions never proceed to any higher state 
of progress; they remain intelligent — no more. 
Hence the misery and the woe of the centuries. 
Hence the long generations of slavish repeti- 
tions, of cruel error. It is only when intelli- 
gence does not stagnate, but flows on toward 
the ocean of imagination that love (transcend- 
ing the three states, instinct, intuition, and in- 
telligence, which mark man as higher than the 
animals) comes with the power to make us per- 
fect according to the intention of the Creator. 
Love, then, is only known and experienced by 
higher natures having finer sensibilities, larger 
capacities. That is the only reason why it is 
rare. But the essential must not be overlooked ; 
sexual feeling is not love even with humans. 
The desire to preserve the species arises from 
instinct, and where instinct is strong in an 

110 



imaginative person we have the double joy of 
love and propagation. With dull natures, toil- 
worn creatures, phlegmatics and such others, in 
the category of the intelligent because they are 
human, there is often revealed an emotion mis- 
taken for love which is not love, but emotional 
instinct. 

What do we do when we discover limitation 
in that state of bliss? We at once deny the 
powers which have made it possible for us to 
love and concurrently hurl ourselves down to 
the level of the merely intelligent — those who 
never enjoy more than spasms of emotional 
instinct. Who would so desecrate love? 

This is all new to me. This is what I have 
learned from you. 

No, my love is immune from failure. She is 
the resolute beacon which turns to light my 
soul on its way to fulfillment. What do I see 
in her? Depths — great depths containing all 
the elements of the sum of human happiness. 
She will do under stress nobly what she now 
does royally. What do I see in her? An un- 
conquerable soul, a heart unquenchable, a nature 

111 



straight from the brightest fire which ever 
purged gold from dross. 

Thursday morning. 

Did you feel kisses on your hair last night? 
Or were you sound asleep at midnight and only 
dreamed it? Well, this morning you might 
have felt a sensation like lips softly stealing 
over dimples, and a certain wicked curl at the 
nape of your bewitching neck. That was about 
7.30. You didn't hear someone crying, ''Dar- 
ling, where are you?" — crying all day yester- 
day. Oh, my love, I become a lost thing when 
I leave you. 

March 20. 

I am what you have made me, and I cannot 
be different. I would not be otherwise if I 
could. I am all yours — ^just your creature — a 
thing of mighty love and devotion. You do 
not know yet what you have made. It is a 
very beautiful thing. It is so rare, the world 
holds not its counterpart. It is all soul, soul 
which absorbs mind and governs every heart- 
throb. An artist would work no more after 

112 



seeing what you had created : it is ^schylean. 
Could you be proud of your work, my dream of 
joy, and not let it make you sad, you would be 
happier. Stand off, darling, and regard it with 
pleasure. When it weeps, laugh and clap your 
soothing hands : when it makes merry enfold it 
in your arms. Rejoice in its every mood, for 
each one is a thing of beauty fashioned by 
you. This creation of yours responds only to 
you. Here the work is for the creator only. 
Creator of me, be happy in your masterpiece 
and know that it exults in pain, loving its artist 
with all the force of its being. 

Later. 
I have no joys apart from you, Rosalind. 
You have taught me to see spring only through 
your happiness. If I could see you greet it, 
gladness shining in your eyes, then I should 
revel in your joy. You love nature so sin- 
cerely for herself that it is a long step nearer 
to her heart to be with you when you commune 
with her. 

113 



March 28. 

Enjoy your trip to the sunset gates where 
West Wind sits and watches for Wobun 
Annung in the blue-black deeps, where I shall 
yearn for my star to light me on again. So 
you took the hill and found the curves easier 
than you thought. Self-reliance is the miracle 
which conquers difRculties. Indeed, most of 
the steeps and curves rise and wind only in 
our own minds. Mind subdues mind. And 
you determined to get to the top and you got 
there. 

Thanks for the book. I shall read it on 
Thursday and sigh for our day at the Dunes. 

hater. 
My mind goes like a faithful hound, head 
down at your precious feet. 

March 2g. 

I saw a sunset last evening I would have 

given a good deal for you to see. It reminded 

me of that Dupre in the Cleveland gallery — 

all gold, purple clouds, amber, yellow and saf- 

114 



fron. The sun dropping behind clouds down 
between the hills skirting the Monongahela. A 
great disc of gold changing tones as the clouds 
rose — the river like a pool of burnished brass — 
then copper — then silver. The hills veiled in 
strange patches of smoke suffused with flame. 
A most unusual sight. Later, on my return 
from Dormont, which is on top of the highest 
hill about Pittsburgh, I saw the river hushed 
on the bosom of the night. 

Tuesday. 

Snow with you, and your sun here. Spring 
is in the air this morning. It is so soft, so 
soothing ; the window is wide open, and through 
a misty veil the sun is pouring in upon the desk. 
The long letter which came last night seemed 
like a cloak of snow hiding violets and prim- 
roses which would bloom at the touch of a thaw- 
ing sun. 

April 2d. 

It has been raining heavily. A motor ride 
had been arranged so that I might get some air 
in the country. It is too gloomy just now. 

115 



But it is April, and the sun may come out again, 
and give some fine hours before dark. 

Isn't it strange? I am as anxious, as eager, 
as nervous as a boy. I can't write for think- 
ing — thinking a myriad things. My mind has 
behaved in the most riotous manner since I left 
on Tuesday. It will not be sedate, amenable 
to direction. Like a fugitive it flies off to 
Arizona and it takes sanctuary with you. Then 
it hies to a room it knows so well and clings 
to the figure of a lovely woman and begs per- 
mission to nestle under the shadow of her heart. 
It will go with some fresh flowers tomorrow 
to greet her when she reaches home. It goes 
now on the wings of a kiss, far away, down the 
prairie reaches to the sunset hills where you 
rise higher to meet it nearer the heavens. 

April 4, 
If I am a barometer, then you must be the 
weather. Indeed, my mercury can be affected 
by no one else. 



116 



Wednesday morning. 

Why can't we go out together in those close- 
bowered leaves beyond the village where we 
went that day when your hair was flying and 
you looked so happy? Do you remember? I 
want to go with you and explore the deep 
undergrowth. My hamadryad, won't you let 
me come? 

April 7. 

We can do just what we like within the 
bounds of refinement. What could we do that 
would be distasteful to our real friends? We 
do not care for many acquaintances, do we? 
Our time is far too valuable to bother with the 
odds and ends of social friendships — our lives 
are too full of essential things. Is it not so? 
Why, my dear love, what can the world give us? 
Nothing — absolutely nothing. It has nothing 
we want. We are far above it. You have 
learned, and so have I, to estimate it all at its 
true value. And now we have entered upon a 
period of fundamental change why should we 
not greet the opportunity which presents itself 
to live our lives in our own way? Who would 

117 



dare to question our wisdom? Believe me, 
sweet inspirer, there is now no one, nothing, pre- 
senting an obstacle to our happiness. Indeed, 
we have overcome, months ago, all difficulties. 
We overcame the difficulties small natures shy 
at because we did not let them appear as diffi- 
culties. Our love was above all these things 
which scare the timid, frigid herd. We are 
conscious of the beauty of our loving and our 
courage is born of that consciousness and noth- 
ing can stand the blinding light of our devotion 
to each other. Our love has the radiance of the 
sun ; human eyes are not made to look critically 
on the sun. 

Sunday morning. 
Do tell me about the wild crocus. Wait, 
you will be known as the pioneer of wild flower 
gardens ! Your fame will spread, and a volu- 
minous correspondence will flow in from all 
parts on wild flowers and "how to make a gar- 
den." We two know how, but our secret will 
never make a garden for any one else. How I 
long to get to work ! I saw a lot of pretty wild 

118 



flowers yesterday, but seeing them from the 
train is maddening. Whenever I see a newish 
bloom I feel like calling, "Darling, see!" I 
must have you at my side to enjoy the effect of 
things upon you. It is better to see you de- 
lighted than to get delight from the flowers. 

April /J. 
I have walked up through the park to the 
museum. This room is delightfully cool and 
restful after my roaming about in old paths, 
turnings and twistings I knew so well twenty- 
five years ago. It is so warm today only in- 
valids wear overcoats. It is hot in the sun. 
The daffodils, irises and peonies are up, the 
daffodils showing buds. And where the gar- 
deners have removed the winter's covering of 
leaves from beds of herbaceous plants there is 
a motley showing of many-colored sprouts and 
shoots. Spikelets glisten in the sun, and some 
trees have taken on their silvery veils to hide 
the black garb of their branches. 



119 



April 75. 
You cannot tell what it means to me to find 
a companion who loves the fields, the woods, 
the wild flowers. When did I have a mate who 
could speak the woodland language? Who in 
my life, since boyhood, could interest me in all 
the leafy wonders of plants? Why, you are 
more in touch with the beauty of nature than 
any woman I have known. The Dunes — what 
a day of revelation! The first run up to the 
lake — that day in the wood, when we gathered 
roots, when long-stemmed violets smiled up 
into your lovely eyes. I do not remember any- 
one standing with me deep in contemplation of 
colour-changing skies at eve. All these joys 
of my youth you brought back to me. And how 
long since I devoted hours to pictures ? Twelve 
years — saving a few odd days now and then at 
the Tate Gallery. And I used to know pictures 
and love them so well. Oh, the dross of polit- 
ical life : the blundering stupidity of it all. But 
that is ended. My youth is renewed ; beauty is 
come again into my life, ushered in by my be- 
loved who is beautiful and noble. Who sent 

120 



me day after day to the Metropolitan last 
spring? My beloved. With love in my heart 
and hope in my breast I saw with other eyes 
the glory of Rodin's work. His art being bom 
of love was clear to me who saw it with a lover's 
eyes. Your tenderness helped me to translate 
the tenderness of Rodin. Who sent me in 
search of American landscapists, — Wyant, 
Murphy, Blakelock, Inness, Foster? Who but 
you, dear love? Then think of the symphony, 
then of the opera, of the Ring. Twelve long 
years in banishment, deprived of all the art I 
loved so well. And you, you, my mate, brought 
all the good things back. Books — the books I 
know! You love them too. And who ever 
read to me? It is a fairy dream too good for 
mortal experience! Nothing but love could 
work miracles like these. The wonderful 
world of mind and art, which I thought had 
passed away for me, exists again. You re- 
create it, fill it with beauty and light, and say, 
"Look, enjoy it once again." 



121 



Later. 
A year of consummate happiness — what 
have I crowded into it? I have lived. De- 
spair is forgotten; the pain of longing is past. 
She fills my cup with the red wine of joy flow- 
ing from her heart. I have drunk of her loveli- 
ness and basked in the sunshine of her beauty. 
Hope unfolds a world of glory to me; the rose 
spreading its petals open under morning's sun 
is not more fair than hope is now to me. She 
lifts me up and bids me live in the light of 
her radiance. She is grace and charm, mirth 
and wisdom. She is joy, my inspiration, and 
my dream well realized. Loving her has 
brought me back to God. His mercy and for- 
giveness are in her hands; she touches me and 
I am absolved. I shall live to worship her; 
henceforth my joy shall be her happiness, my 
aim to win her praise, my deep desire to make 
myself worthy of her glorious love. 

April 2 2d. 
It is a warm, clear, sunny day — a perfect 
herald of spring. In tlie country the smell of 

122 



resinous buds must be in the air. How it woos 
me, tempts me, to rush off into the stirring 
woods. I know a lane far up the Hudson, not 
far from Nyack, where it is easy to lose one's 
self in a few minutes. It winds up the hills, 
through colonnades of strong trees, set in rich 
undergrowth, every now and then giving 
glimpses of the glinting Hudson flowing down 
to the sea. This is a day for such a lane; this 
early day when the responsive earth, warm 
under the heavy snows, now thawed away, gives 
birth to the verdure of the earliest flowers. 
Birds will already be mating; some song per- 
haps trills in a bush selected for a nest. 

Morning. 
Last night I picked up 'Two on a Tower," 
and read some of it again. Hardy had it from 
the beginning. But so had all those men who 
worked in quiet. Of course my life has been 
turbulent because of the activities I have chosen. 
Many-sided, nothing good — after all, many- 
sidedness may be an indication of mediocrity. 
Still, I have done what I have done without 

123 



much help — only George Douglas Brown, I 
think, spurred me on nearly twenty years ago, 
at the time when he wrote ''The House with 
the Green Shutters." Once with Meredith we 
talked of ideal conditions for literary work, and 
George said, ''No friends, no woman, and some 
wine." Cynical, eh? But there was a grain 
of truth in it so far as he was concerned. 

Nevertheless, to do really good work, quiet 
is absolutely necessary. To advance slowly, 
surely, making each sentence tell, is the way 
to get satisfactory work done. Invention! 
Well, that will never bother me. Invention 
is my trouble — it is too easy, it comes too 
swiftly. I used to think only of the material. 
And now I want form and style. 

April 26. 
I saw some primroses last night, and I 
thought of you. There is a wood in Shropshire 
near where I lived as a lad. It is called Para- 
dise. In April the ground is thick with prim- 
roses, wild hyacinths, daffodils and violets. I 
saw you there, knee-deep in flowers, with a slum- 

124 



bering sun bathing you in saffron, glinting 
about your figure in shafty streams of light 
thrown through the colonnades of trees encased 
in spring's warm green coat of sap moss. 

Thursday evening. 
I have been in the Museum for three hours. 
Found a copy of the torso of the Pudici Venus. 
It is tucked away in a corner. My mind is 
clearer now. There is nothing like marble for 
balm — save the symphony, of course. Lord! 
those Greeks knew beauty in all her forms. 
What lines! I stood for half an hour before 
the great Venus and found new beauties. 
Stand on her right and look across the shoulders 
and watch the far line rise above the near one. 
A valley between two gracious hills lies smiling 
at the lovely shoulders. 

Friday. 
For a long time I stood on the back plat- 
form and enjoyed the pure prairie air. The 
greenwoods and the hills are so tender. How 
this season penetrates me with its budding un- 

125 



folding processes, expressing themselves in num- 
berless forms of beauty! What a delight it 
would be to be with you now I Just to see the 
fair reflection pictured in your face. Enjoy it, 
dear. Take every gift you find. It is spurn- 
ing the gift of God to deny your soul a natural 
joy. By the divine law of compensation, pain 
and sorrow are with us too often for that! 
Really these things balance; if we kept our ac- 
counts we should find in the sum of things that 
our joys, if we accept them, yield a profit. 

May 2. 
The grass was tinctured green yesterday, and 
the willows are yellow to-day. It is so warm 
a coat is uncomfortable. All the roads are full 
of haze, and even the firs are lifting their 
feathery branches. Warm shadows lie on the 
gray brown ground, and sunny rays quiver in the 
thickening trees. Spring is here, and bends, 
like a tender mother above a slumbering child, 
over land and sea. Out in the sound a warm 
mist floats lazily over the calm waters. It is 
pleasant to-day to look out upon the shore. 

126 



There was a time when I responded to this 
season as quickly as a lilac bud; nothing in the 
ordinary round of day would have kept me 
away from the woods and fields. 

May 4. 

I am going out to find a ladyslipper for you 
if there be one to find. From inquiries I made 
this morning I discover that the plant is of the 
orchid family. Maybe there are specimens at 
Chesterton, the place where the orchids are. 

Did you get the lovely laurelstein I found in 
the market this morning? I gasped when I 
saw it. The grower told me we could slip it 
and raise sturdy plants. It is not hardy, but 
does well outside in summer. 

May 8. 
I had purchased a trowel, for I went in search 
of a ladyslipper for my darling. I dug up a 
few roots. Alas, no basket to put them in. 
Then I searched and searched — hoping and 
praying, but ignorant of the appearance of the 
plant. When I was almost heart-sick at my 

127 



failure three ladies came by and I asked if they 
could tell me what a ladyslipper was like. 
One immediately produced a book and showed 
me a coloured picture of the plant and bloom. 
She said she and her companions had not seen 
one in their pilgrimage. I, however, kept the 
picture in my eye, thanked them, and pushed 
on. Whether my further efforts were success- 
ful I dare not say positively, but I have what 
looks like a ladyslipper. The plant I have is 
not in bloom. 

The threatening storm developed swiftly and 
I had to return. I reached Chesterton just in 
time. I should have been drenched to the mar- 
row. It was a superb storm. The thunder 
was ravenously angry, and the lightning su- 
blime, I was amazed at the grandeur of the 
flashes, so sharp, swift, constant, in their action. 
The greedy earth, parched for weeks, seemed to 
swallow without a gulp the cool downpour. 

On my way back to Gary I saw a wonderful 
cloud effect. The storm blazing away to the 
northeast and the sun setting gloriously in the 
west. Atmospherically I never saw anything 

128 



quite so strange before. The western sky was 
lovely. Your blue^ — then saffron, purple, and 
rich opal clouds drifting round towards the blue 
and black of the storm. 

luUter. 

What a day! Well, too varied, too lovely, 
in parts, for the banished. But all to the glory 
of God and my wondrous mate. She, whom I 
see in every lovely thing that grows, cannot 
know the idolatry of my heart. How can I 
tell her? That is impossible. I have told 
her, told her in words, in actions, in every way 
I know. But there is much more to tell, much 
more to do, before she will realize all. 

I looked to-day long at one tiny bloom grow- 
ing alone, and I thought of the courage you 
have often spoken of. That courage is faith 
unashamed. The faith you made a poem of. 
The little flower was.no more ashamed of me 
than I of it. It seemed to say to me, Be all 
God intended you to be, and you will be true to 
your own being. It lifted up its head and said, 
"I bend not to any of my kind. I am what 

129 



I am." The lesson smote me hard. How 
could it be beautiful if it lived on sufferance and 
took heed of the laws of other flowers? To 
live it had to choose its soil, its place, its sun 
and shade and moisture. Brave little flower, 
you were beautiful because you lived your own 
life. 

It is late. I am subdued, contrite and 
purged. Sheer exhaustion is good. 

May 14. 
A fruitless search. The place where my 
young friend saw the ladyslippers last year is 
all blown over with sand three or four feet 
deep. This boy lives in a cottage on the Dunes 
during the summer and knows the locality pretty 
well. He is familiar with the wild flowers. 
Unfortunately I had to come in early because 
of the lecture to-night. Had I been able to 
stay out he would have taken me to a place two 
miles away from his cottage where he says there 
are many orchids. I shall, however, spend the 
whole of to-morrow in the Dunes. But I shall 

130 



have to rely on my own intelligence, as the boy 
will be at his examinations in school. 

Though everything is greener and fresher 
after the rain, it is cold to-day and sometimes, 
out of the sun, cheerless; yet the orchards are 
wonderful, and the woods rich in varied colours. 
It is a shame you miss this transition, but now 
I know the roads you might be able to get down 
here a day next week. There are very fine 
ferns to gather, shooting-stars in numbers, and 
the best violets I have seen. 

Do you remember the road we took when we 
got out to dig the ferns? Well, there are fine 
woods along that way. I counted nine differ- 
ent shades in the foliage colour of one wood. 
If the sun had been on it I think there would 
have been more gradations of colour to count. 

Thursday. 
I have seen some beautiful small birds. Tiny 
things with bright plumage^ — not wrens or hum- 
ming-birds. Little things, haunting the brush 
and not flying high. 

131 



It has rained in torrents for hours but now 
it has cleared. I shall go soon to the Dunes 
and search all day for your flower. 

A luckless day. It has rained in a steady 
downpour for two hours and the roads are heavy 
with mud. I wish it would clear up. A man 
here told me just now it is at least a fortnight 
too early for ladyslippers. He says the severe 
winter will keep them back. 

Later. 
Communion with you is sweeter than the 
benediction of fresh bathed morn with the sun 
shining on a grove of daphne. My sprit rises 
from its orison refreshed ; it cleaves to the high- 
est stars ; its strength is renewed ; and the tasks 
it must essay are overcome. So love like mine 
for you is at once a blessing and a prayer. 
Nothing can quench its fire; it glows in the 
darkest hour, the bitter tears which fall in times 
of absence cannot dim its lustre. Tears are 
now only the waters of longing wrung out when 
I am much alone, but in these tears sweet mem- 
ories gleam and bid me take heart of grace. 

132 



Friday. 
What a sight the fruit trees are ! They will 
be at their best in a day or two. Will you miss 
them? Is anything worth such a scene of 
lavish beauty? As I went along to-day, noting 
here and there spots we looked upon a few 
weeks ago, then bare, I thought of the joy, 
the kindling joy you would express if you were 
with me. The thorn, a green vision of spring's 
symmetry, trilium everywhere, phlox in all its 
regal K^olour, daintily covering great spaces, 
like a purple robe flung down for your feet. 
Beauty everywhere crying out for beauty to 
come and rejoice in it all. 



May 22. 
The great musician, painter, writer, sculptor, 
no matter what material trials, no matter what 
spiritual defeats, has had some one place where 
work could, continuously, be accomplished. 
Garret or basement was sufficient, so long as it 
was the regular place of seclusion. But they 
who have wrought great things have had the 

133 



courage to reject all material gains which would 
take them away from their real labours. 

So long as I have you I have both life and 
art. 

Monday evening. 

Fate drives me in circumstance towards you. 
Outside my will events shape themselves to my 
deepest desire. Do you wonder the ancients 
deified such happening? 

But you — you stand apart like one of the 
elect, mute, waiting the outcome of the strife. 
Like Pallas at Troy when neither side knew 
what she would do to help or destroy. And 
the fate of Ilium did not depend really on the 
contestants; Pallas won the final day. So the 
gods dispose of heroes in the end. 

Wednesday. 
I was wandering along through a heavy- 
footed hour just now and a thought which often 
comes to me came again. It was this : I weary 
her sometimes and I must find out what it is 
that brings the weariness. I know well enough. 

134 



I know what it is to sufFer from too much atten- 
tion, — I was going to say devotion, but that 
would not be true. Attention is the word. 
But, darling, what I ask and what I want are 
poles apart. I know I ask much, so much of 
your time, but think sometimes that I only ask 
a fraction of what I want. I am more con- 
siderate than you perhaps think. 

Another thought which comes so often: If I 
displeased her, would she let me know? I 
might unconsciously say and do something 
which might annoy her. 

Then I go back over conversations, letters, 
actions, and, oh heaven, everything I can re- 
member, searching out some grievance. 

All this means I am inclined to turn a very 
human man full of every known and unknown 
frailty into a thing born ''without sin." And 
all for you — the last of all women to care a 
tupenny cuss for an immaculate prig. I am 
just mad, north and south ! You might be a 
veritable exotic in gossamer the way I think 
sometimes of you. It is just my downright 

135 



consciousness of my own worthlessness which 
breeds a million fears of losing you, offending 
you. 

Well, I am your sensitive palimpsest which 
receives all impressions — your look, your breath, 
your thoughts, your tones. It is nothing but 
sheer subjection. What am I? Is there any 
of me left? Not a tatter. You have ab- 
sorbed me and I am your alter ego — your 
shadow changing to every change of your way, 
your mind, your soul. 

June 2. 

Well, darling, the world came to an end and 
all to no purpose, or rather without physical 
cause. All the same, it came to an end. But 
the life-giver put the poor old planet together 
again and it is doing its duty on its axis just as 
if its revolutions had never been interrupted for 
a moment. 

I am a whimsy creature — a leaf fluttered by 
all the winds which gyrate about you. What 
is to be done with me? I can only hope that 
you will come to know me and my moods so 

136 



well that like an understanding mother you will 
know what each cry means: a kiss, a look, a 
touch — your hand. 

Thursday, ii P. M. 
My soul is like a tranquil pool to-night, and 
you lie like a pale lily on its surface. Deep 
down the root is bedded in the hidden ground, 
spreading a thousand shoots firmly into the re- 
cesses of my being. 

Friday morning. 
If I were to tell you the thousand dreams 
of joy which come to me every day, you would 
take fright and fly away or remain in the quiet 
bosom of those flower gardens where their frag- 
rant yellow blossoms would cover you up. 

June g. 
This has been summer's first real day. What 
a sublime evening and night ! The sky is an 
eastern dream of many faint blues shimmering 
in the afterglow of a rosy sun ; the stars all 
trembling as if they were afraid they had made 
their appearance too soon. 

137 



Monday. 

I am just a chord in a minor of a major key — 
the discordance colouring all my frenzy. An 
accidental in a strange grotesque strain. Will 
you know me or music first? Music, of course; 
you will never know me, because I am my love 
for you. 

I am full of lyrics these days. My mind, 
my heart and my soul are full of you. If I 
were near you! Do you know I am starved? 
I hope you realize what it means, my love, to 
starve me. 

Later. 

How I hope you will enjoy every hour of 
your holiday. I will be Pippa and invoke all 
good, smiling, God-laden things to greet you 
everywhere you go, my love. It is very lonely 
here without you. All this district is so full of 
memories, poignant when you are away. 

June 14. 
I am niggard and would not share your frown 
with any one had I my way. Last night I 
looked deep into your glorious eyes and I 

138 



thought, can she know her own power over me? 
Can she know how I prize her loveliness? 
Why, you were just a radiant bloom, a girl 
blushing with new delight. There is no end 
to the wonderful sum of all your powers which 
bold me thrall. Your skin and veins they 
charm — I want to kiss the blue tracery of every 
vein. I want to feel the velvet tones of your 
bewitching skin. Then your voice and its rich 
nuances. Your stories. That doll story, told 
inimitably, overwhelmed me. Where do you 
begin? I know there is no end to you. That 
is why you are so immortal, and may yet in 
some way immortalize me, your worshipper. 

June ig. 
The band was ready this morning. Better 
than I expected. I do hope you will like it. 
With it I send my heart's dear love. It is a 
golden band without beginning or end. It is 
a symbol of duration. The letters, too, have 
no starting, capital or period. Two names are 
intermixed. There is no inscription ; I thought 
one would be redundant. The letters are their 

139 



own rune. My sweet, wear it and know that 
it represents the circle of my love, always em- 
bracing. It is the symbol of my soul. May it 
always envelop you. 

Saturday. 

My lovely one, it has been so hard to write. 
"She loves me, she loves me" runs in my mind 
like a brook in springtime. I went to sleep 
saying, "She loves me." I woke with the 
thought, "She loves me." How beautiful it is 
to listen now to your voice ! I can hear quite 
distinctly the syllables as they fell from your 
delicious lips. Was ever kind saint so gracious 
as you were yesterday? I was sick and you 
made me well. I had been in a very hell of 
despair and you raised me up to heaven. 

I am so tired now. I believe I could go to 
sleep — and to-night, to-night I shall rest. Oh, 
my darling, my precious one, how grateful I am. 
I thought I should die and now "She loves me" 
I know I shall live. Such is the agony I suffer 
at times. My very spirit deserts me, leaves me 
stripped, naked, to all the fears and doubts of 

140 



love's anguish. What suffering ! No physical 
pain is like it. There is no real exquisite pain 
like that I suffer for you. All is void — the 
heart too heavy to carry. Yes, I staggered 
about yesterday morning like one drunk. 

Thursday. 
I do not know whether our friendship made 
me conscious this week of the utter mediocrity 
of most of the people I met, but never before 
was I so struck with the middlingness of people. 
One or two — ^perhaps four folk stood up above 
the rest. Now I wonder why it is we permit 
our lives to be ruled by the mediocre. Surely 
we do ourselves gross injustice. We reduce our 
capacities to the level of the conventionalists. 
Our thought is restricted by the knowledge that 
they can affect our happiness — and they do af- 
fect our happiness so long as we are conscious 
of their existence. We are not what we should 
be. Measure the round of life by the propor- 
tions of the small and we fit into the scheme set 
up by the little 'uns. Lord, what a lot of little 
'uns there are! Are we or are we not spiritu- 
al 



ally and intellectually supreme beings? If we 
are, then we must express ourselves freely. We 
must not be corrupted by the notions of our 
inferiors. 

June 24. 
It is good to be here in the quiet for a little 
while, though the atmosphere gets at me keenly, 
and makes me long for a period of rest. How 
little rest there has been in my life ! Well, I 
suppose it does not matter much about rest so 
long as one can snatch an hour or two now and 
then for change of occupation. Rest there is in 
having various things to do. There is no rest 
in routine. It is monotony that kills, not exer- 
tion. I remember Duse said to me once that 
she would die if she heeded the advice of doctors 
and gave up the stage for a year or two. 

Later. 
Something like jessamine, a sprig of garden 
mignonette, and one of a purple flower of the 
same kind, bring thoughts which clear the mind. 



142 



lo p. M. 
I've been as mad as a grass-eating Ludwig 
for the past hour about some damnable thing I 
can't get hold of. A fancy. Something. I'm 
blest if I know what. Yet a feeling of utter 
wretchedness gripped me. I'm all right now. 

Tuesday morning. 
Each day gone is one day nearer you. You 
are mistress of the hours which mean life to me. 
Bless you ! Come back with all the beauty you 
have stolen from those gardens which can add 
nothing to your own, only yielding health and 
freshness to your spirit. 

June 28. 
W., because of his dejection, raised a doubt 
in my mind as to his intellectual capacity — 
more, indeed — as to his spiritual strength. 
Dearest, how rare it is to find a woman or man 
with courage enough to believe in her or his own 
soul's strength in hours of conflict ! And yet, 
the secret of spiritual conquest lies just there. 

143 



''Rise to thy might, O my soul, when all the 
world opposes thee." 

Let us believe in ourselves. Only empty 
creatures place their beliefs in others. 

''Things must be taken by storm" — yes, abso- 
lutely — things being the desires and needs of 
the soul, mind, and body. Let us take things 
by storm — love, art, and eternity all demand it 
of us. 

Sunday. 
Who gave to me the power to tell how fair 
my mind might be could it but work under the 
influence of your love? Who made me believe 
I might rise to worthiness and leave a thought 
behind to gladden all mankind? Worker of 
miracles — it is you I must thank for these rosy 
hopes which come to me even now in hours of 
deep distress. There is nothing but art which 
feeds on love such as we know and feel is divine. 
Gratitude wells up in me like a surge of the 
ocean and lifts me high enough to kiss the fringe 
of your garment's hem. Love, you have in- 
spired me, thrilled me into new life. How 

144 



could I survive without the hope you have in- 
stilled into me? 

July I. 
How I hate this place ! You can guess what 
it has been like since the beginning of June. 
Bocklin might paint it in the midst of cypresses, 
and call it the House of Shadows. Five more 
days and nights, and then — you. Ye Gods, has 
Pallas lost her wings? Zeus says, "Grin and 
bear it." Rhadamanthus mocks, "You should 
have been a lawyer, then you might have en- 
joyed a brief in hell !" 

Tuesday. 
Every culmination has its finale in you; and 
every scheme finds its source, its starting-point 
in you. I shall set to work when you — . And 
then, I shall wait until you — . So I wear down 
the days and speed the nights away. As the 
time draws nearer I become more hopeful. I 
have been very gloomy, dear, sometimes ex- 
tremely sad. I've had bad hours. 

145 



Wednesday. 
Waiting, waiting, waiting! I wake to wait 
and sleep to wait again. You know how ab- 
sence from you punishes me, but this is cruel. 
I try to see you, try to hear your voice. I try 
to call my soul back for company. But it is 
with you. I am void. If we knew, would 
we face these tortures? I would — for you. 

6th: g in the morning. 
I thought it would be late before my friends 
would leave last night and I should get away to 
read the letters in some quiet place. They went 
away, however, about eleven, and then I retired 
to my room where I read them over and over 
again. Again this morning. They are very 
dear letters; somehow there is a revelation of 
the woman I know best in their pages. The 
sweet, confiding, generous one, who came with 
all her great gifts to me when she saw my eyes 
beckoning to her. Was there ever in this world 
any union so spontaneous? I am satisfied; and 
I shall try to do what you ask. Sometimes 
when I upbraid you for hiding yourself from 

146 



me in your letters, I feel miserably selfish. It 
is selfish of me. But — then — I shall never be 
satisfied. I want your every thought. And I 
need them, every one. 

Just the glimpse I had of your letters yester- 
day on my way to T. must have put new life in 
me, for I don't think I ever spoke quite so well. 

Friday. 

My mind to-night is very full of another 
journey out of C. when I was all tears — a wet 
thing wrung cruelly. I shall never forget it. 
But what a change now ! Why, I go now and 
take you with me. Then ! Dear, dear beauty 
— there is all the difference between doubting — 
not knowing — and knowing. Is it not strange? 
You were mine then, but not as you are now. 
You gave royally, but not to keep. 

I said you were the personification of all those 
beautiful longings of my life, all those big, 
noble, heavenly desires which seemed so high 
above my reach. It is true, beloved. You are 
the golden bowl in which the gods have poured 
every delightful aspiration, every sweet joy my 

147 



mind might crave. What a miraculous revela- 
tion — Nature is the only ever-changing. She 
makes a desert of a civilization — a people rise 
up from a desert. She draws a watershed and 
leaves a parched plain and where no river ran 
she speeds a thousand rivulets. The mountain 
rises sheer, rock on rock, and lo, the face of it is 
changed — the rocks are riven and tumble to 
the valleys and green ascents and crested pines 
smile where grim frowning stone looked down 
before. Yes, she is the ever-changing — in ap- 
pearance ; at heart ever-constant. And so with 
my beloved. The wonders of her nature ever 
show the beauties of her moods, but she, the 
real, the soul of her, is unalterable. She is a 
progression, her wonders are architectonic, but 
no climax for long, and never yet anti-climax. 

Tuesday morning. 
I am so glad the plants were put in — they 
seemed so parched, so thirsty, for want of warm 
moisture. How vigorous things can be when 
nature is not kind ! You notice the courage of 
plants, wrestling for life and beauty under dis- 

148 



abilities. I love you for that. Let us hope 
your garden will be a haven of joy to them 
and that they will find there every reason why 
they should flourish for you, their friend, their 
lovely guardian. 

July 15. 
In the valleys here and there great patches 
of young wheat, so green, among the gray-brown 
grass lands which mingled finely with the blue 
grays of the silvery cotton woods, and the pale 
chromes and greens of the willows. And the 
calm of it all! The assurance of peace! 
What a contrast! The hills as mighty as my 
love for you — as fixed, as adamant, but serenely 
facing time, hailing the sunrise, bidding it rest, 
and mingling their peaks in the maze of the 
starry tracks. Oh, for somic of that peace which 
lies in the shadows of those hills ! Will it ever 
be mine? Your breast is the place where my 
rest is found ; there I know the peace — the only 
peace I shall ever know. 



149 



Friday. 

We must be together like two inseparable 
rubies in an indestructible crown. I am not 
sane without you. You have endowed me with 
another sense — inexplicable, pathetic, agoniz- 
ing. The sense of a severed part is the only 
way I can explain it. A sense that cries bitterly 
for a master, for a star, a body yearning for a 
soul. Keep me always in the orbit of A^our 
radiance. Lock me up I My love has the key. 
Only she can let me out, only she can see me, 
only she can come in and speak. I am her 
prisoner. So, when I tire you, when you want 
rest — that will save me from, these awful hours, 
these shattering noons, these terrible spasms of 
loneliness. 

You that can wipe out of mind every torture 
of a lonely night by giving me one glimpse of 
your dear face must know how great is the 
power of your presence on my life. I see your 
blessed smile and sleepless hours are forgotten. 
I see the kindly sparkle in your precious eyes 
and my weariness is gone. I have passed a 
long night through in sleepless anxiety and 

150 



dread, and the moment you appear I am re- 
freshed, re-made. There is more magic in your 
glance than ever Persian practised in the fra- 
grant gardens of a sun-worshipping king. 
What can I give in return for the one great 
hope of my storm-tossed life? Just adoration 
and enduring love. 

Come, day, when I shall know no more the 
anguish of absence. Come, night, when I shall 
see that face in sweet sleep's contentment close 
by me. Beauty is expression, not contour — you 
have taught me that; and the beauty I have 
seen is unrivalled in skies of summer's morn 
or harvest's star-lit eve. Impatient I shall be, 
and yearn increasingly until you take me to you 
and press my ear upon your heart there to listen 
to the rhythm of its beating. Rest! God, I 
have longed for rest — such rest as only you, my 
own dear love, can give. 

Whence comes this courage to face my task? 
From you, and you alone. Memories are dear — 
I could not live without them — ^but the joy 
of you has so enveloped me that I can face any- 
thing in dread absence which will bring me 

151 



sooner to your side to live. It is your strength 
in loving which gives me strength to go on 
without you, to plan tasks which will take me 
away, to look for months ahead to days when 
I shall not see you, perhaps for many weeks 
together. And now to-night, in planning work 
which must be done, courage forsook me, and I 
became despondent. It seemed so hard that I 
should say, 'This time must be spent away from 
you, my love." 

Later. 
Each memory bids me go, yet each is sweet 
enough to make me linger. Memories so lovely 
come sometimes to break the purpose of my life. 
Voices of these memories cry out, 'Take the 
joys she holds for you while you may — life is 
short." Then my whole soul is stirred in deep 
revolt against my going, bitter resentment sets 
my nature throbbing in a whirl of dread, all 
the world is thrust in sudden backward revolu- 
tion, and I am thrown down helpless, distracted, 
prone, undone. 



152 



August y. 

Incomparable girl! Loveliness and tender- 
ness envelop me, you drench me with your 
charm. How wonderful you were to-day! I 
passed through the hours like one led by a 
trusty guide through flowery paths to a promised 
land. Goodness and grace were born in you. 
They make the light which strengthens me and 
beckons me on. 

Understanding is rare. In women it is in- 
herent with instinct, but seldom, oh, so seldom 
shows itself. Perhaps the constant suppression 
of instinctive yearnings, the long battle they 
have fought against revelation, is to blame for 
their seeming lack of deep understanding. But 
it is not so with you, my darling. You know, 
intuitively. I find you warm and sympathetic, 
eager to get in touch with ideas, careful in 
selecting facts, broad in analysis, and keen to 
pursue a point to its source or period. It was 
delightful to listen to you to-day. It is always 
that, but somehow you excelled yourself. 
Where you get your clear, direct speech from I 
don't know, for I have always thought long 



practice was necessary to acquire those quali- 
ties. Is it love? Love gives me so many qual- 
ities I did not heretofore possess, perhaps it is 
so with you. 

I want you where rays come glinting through 
the branches, where the air is clear and tree 
crests make a roof for us. You are for the 
open. Superb woman I Twice I saw you de- 
scend a bank thick with trees and undergrowth. 
You were splendid. There is more strong grace 
in that torso of yours than is to be found any- 
where but in a Greek marble — but yours really, 
actually lives, breathes, palpitates; it demands 
direct action. Were you for two moments 
Diana wandering from the temple of Ephesus — 
or Artemis searching for wild men to tame 
and be a carrier of her weapons, Artemis, spirit 
of the clean air, the goddess who knew woods 
and birds? No wonder my mind was haunted 
with Greek forms and symbols. The leaves 
you trod upon made me think of Thanatos be- 
cause they died to make a carpet for your feet ; 
Hypnos, because you lay in my arms and closed 
your eyes, secure and happy in our solitude; 

154 



Oneiros, for I dreamed heaven was there, made 
glorious by my love; then Eros, ever-present 
love, the beginning and the end of existence for 
me. 

Tuesday. 

Now we face the time to come with purpose 
fixed and aim unalterable, I see how right and 
excellent the unfolding of our lives has been. 
"These things shall be," John Addington Sy- 
monds said, and I feel that with us some law 
divine has been in operation to bring us to- 
gether. Joy, beauty and content do not enter 
in where ill things conspire to change the fret- 
ful workings of a sordid day. And tears, 
pains, and longings are the penalties of deep, 
abiding love, not the evidences of thwarted de- 
sire. 

Has there been so much heaven in our lives 
that we should stand fearful on the threshold 
and not enter in when the gates would open to 
our touch? All that is best in us cries out for 
all that joy and beauty can yield. Alas, it is 
the superficial and conventional which hold us 

155 



back sometimes : the narrow, timid canons of a 
cramped and cultureless system. Then we are 
not masters of our fate. My rebellious soul 
cries out for freedom because of the joys lib- 
erty will reveal to it, and I know your soul lives 
with mine. What I crave you crave, our need 
is one as our joy is one. 

All my past is gone, and you are here. 
Everything which harnessed me to a drab exist- 
ence is fallen from me; anew I come to you, 
and give you all — ^my life, my mind, my soul. 
These you accept; small tokens, all I have, in 
exchange for the splendid gift you have given — 
your precious love. Darling, what is there 
to fear? We are not ordinary mortals. We 
stand so high above the greatest conception of 
the frigid herd that nothing they say in criti- 
cism would matter. 

To bow to discredited convention is not the 
course of honest folk, and to be honest is a 
duty we first owe to ourselves. Sacrifice and 
duty, words well-mouthed by parsons, carry 
other meanings than those tacked on by the 
modern world. Sacrifice which destroys and 

156 



cannot restore is nothing but vandalism, and 
duty which restricts happiness without effacing 
sorrow and pain is a senseless negative so little 
put into practice that contempt follows where 
it is suggested. Besides, we are conscious of 
our obligations and these we could not despise. 
Remains this one colossal fact: we love. 
That is the overwhelming matter in all this 
play of forces driving us on. We love ! Love 
knows no law but that which is its own; inevi- 
table, omnipotent, adamant. Man was never 
fashioned a being to annul love's own law. It 
is nature, universal, eternal. And we are the 
creatures of that law. That law, and that law 
only, will govern all our days. 



THE END 



157 



